Dingy Harry plans a Saturday night “under the radar” vote on Obamacare

Just as in the House of Representatives, the top Democrat in the Senate, majority leader Reid, plans to try and sneak through an important vote late at night over this weekend, in a bid to minimize public scrutiny.  This is understandable, as many of the latest opinion polls place the public sentiment squarely against the enactment of Obamacare; so much so that Senators such as Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and even Reid himself face the difficult choice of staying on Obama’s, and the Democratic party’s, good side and actually, you know, being re-elected.  The key issues seem to be the familiar ones; the public option, public abortion funding and facilitation, and the substantial tax increases that are woven into the 2000+ page legislative tome.

The vote is tentatively planned for Saturday at 8 pm, following just 10 hours of debate:

One swing Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, said he still has a range of concerns but suggested he might at least be willing to begin debate. “If you don’t like the bill, then why would you block your own opportunity to amend it?” he said. Two other Democrats on the fence, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, remained noncommittal Wednesday evening.

Still to be fought out is the issue of abortion. The Senate bill provides wider insurance coverage for abortion than the House legislation. Among other things, the Senate’s proposal would allow women who receive government subsidies to buy insurance to enroll in a plan that covers abortion, while the House bill would bar that. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) said he wanted to force the Senate to vote on whether to adopt the House limits. “We’ll have a major debate,” he said.

While this bill is still far from Senate passage, it would be better if debate were never opened on this nearly 1 trillion dollar government takeover of the best health care system in the world; one that 85% of Americans are currently happy with.  Now I’ll grudgingly admit that Senator Nelson has a point about needing to open the debate in order for it to be possible to even amend the current legislation.  But with the Stupak legislation neutered through watered-down language and the cost of this masked by tax increases and false promises of medicare cuts that will never come, my considered opinion is that this bill is an economic disaster wating to happen, an abomination of initiative sapping and freedom grabbing de-motivation, and the licensce for the government to intrude into, and regulate, some of the most intimate decisions regarding your most private property-your physical self.

Make no mistake.  Regardless of how little fiscal sense this makes, it does represent Obama’s political Waterloo since he has committed most of his energy and political capital to it’s passage; at the expense of many other responsibilities and concerns of his office.  It has become more about the President exerting his will upon the nation and so much less about what is good for our nation.  He needs to pass something, anything !, that can be pointed to as a Success! of the first historic year of the Obama agenda; he needs to show progress .  It’s all about the optics; about style over substance…

I urge all to call their Senators and register your dissatisfaction with this legislation.  Tell them in no uncertain terms that if they vote for it, you will work as hard as it takes to ensure their electoral defeat.  Better yet, put it in writing…

It’s all on the line now, which explains this cowardly parlaimentary move, coming in the dark of night, as far out of the public eye as possible-save for CSPAN.  Call your Senators, tell them to vote No! on this stealthy incremental step towards removing a fundamental part of your freedom and personal liberty.  Do it for yourself, in the short term, and to save your children and grandchildren from both their share of additional crushing public debt and so that they may enjoy the same level of medical care we do now; one that can only exist in a free market system which incentivizes research, innovation, efficiency, and professional participation.

UPDATE: Bookworm contributes to the conversation by comparing the efforts of the AP on fact-checking the Senate Obamacare bill to the effort expended fact checking Sarah Palin’s new book:

Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
• ObamaCare bills: 2
• Palin book: 11

Number of pages in document being covered:
• ObamaCare bills: 4,064
• Palin book: 432

Number of pages per AP reporter:
• ObamaCare bill: 2,032
• Palin book: 39.3

Mindboggling bias and a painfully obvious agenda? Yes… Surprising? Not at all…