The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats have to pass a bill; they have to find 60 votes in the Senate to pass some multi-trillion dollar concoction or version of “reform.” The president has made health care reform the centerpiece of his “change” agenda. The bill, in different forms, passed three committees in the House and two in the Senate. A version has now passed the entire House. The momentum for passage in the Senate is strong.
The Democrats are now closer than they have been since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid during the Johnson years to vastly expanding the government’s health care entitlement programs and cutting the number of uninsured Americans by about two-thirds. If the Senate can get to 60 votes, close off debate, and pass a final bill, it is likely the House will cave and follow the Senate’s lead.
The only numbers the Democrats are interested in are 60 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House. They don’t care if it will make health care more available or affordable. They don’t care if we can afford it. They want to pass something, anything. As Sen. Baucus said, “If 60 Senators favor it, I’m for it.” If there were ever any principles among these folks, they have long ago abandoned them. All they care about is expanding the federal role in health care. Maybe that was always their only goal. Where is the common sense in this bill that’s over two thousand pages long. It’s all smoke and mirrors to the taxes that will be nailed onto something that will not go into effect for a couple of years but the taxes go on immediately. Are we blind to this? Tax the sunshine, tax the view, oh yeah, California tried that one already. My God it’s all about money and not one darn thing about health.