Sunday, November 8, 2009

Health Scare

Not a good outcome in the House this weekend, but not the end of the world, either. The health care bill passed by only five votes in a chamber overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats (one hapless Republican voted for it - Joesph Cao, who won election in William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson's district in Louisiana). Donald Douglas lays out the obstacles facing health care legislation in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Democratic congressmen celebrate what may be a Pyrrhic victory (at least for the so-called Blue Dogs; see ya in 2010, guys!)


"Hey, let's see if we can all pile into a tiny ambulance!"

12 comments:

Yojimbo said...

We now live in a country where a certain political class considers it perfectly acceptable to jail you for not buying health insurance. The YDMHS* considers these people "extremists" and is compelled to place them on the "terrorist watch list".

*Yojimbo Department of My Home Security

JeffS said...

The JDMHS concurs, Yojimbo.

TW: densa. The exact opposite of Mensa; the "d" stands for both "Democrat" and "Dumb".

RebeccaH said...

What a perfect photo of Congress!

Larry Sheldon said...

Ummmmm....the margin was no where close. Please see http://holycoast.blogspot.com/2009/11/scripted-votes-and-pro-life-suckers.html for a lucid description of how vote management works and how the totals got the way they were. (If she could have trusted Cao, she could have let one more Democrat vote "No".

Anonymous said...

20,000 people show up on the lawn and pay visits to those Bozos. Speeches were made by top Conservative. The Dems respond by passing their destruction anyway. Wasn't there a word that the Dems used very (sorry I've gotta use it) liberally. Oh, yeah. That word was "disenfranchisement". This time it was true.

The only Republican to go along with the mob was Cao, the Rhino from LA. He did so because Barry promised more funds to his district. Isn't that Pay To Play?

Deborah Leigh

Paco said...

Larry: I'm unable to access the link. If the point is that a lot of Democrats voted against the bill because they had Pelosi's "permission" to do so, no doubt that's true - which only underscores the bill's unpopularity with the nay-saying congressmen's constituents.

What I'd be curious to know is this: to the extent that the bill offered a bone to pro-life Democrats in the form of an anti-abortion-funding amendment, which will likely be thrown out during committee negotiations - and which everybody should have known would be thrown out - how can the pro-life Blue Dogs still support the bill after the provision has been stripped? I mean, how do they earn credit with their pro-life constituents that way? Seems like a variation on the John Kerry gambit (i.e., I was for it before I was against it, or maybe vice versa).

Larry Sheldon said...

Hmmmm works for me -- here is a shorter one to the same place:

http://tinyurl.com/ygypzpu

They won't mention those votes in the ads. The will only mention the vote from this past weekend.

Old practice--they (all pols, really) do it all the time. vote one way on some meaning less isue and the other way when it matters.

Larry Sheldon said...

Its on hoalycosst.com--worth looking for and reading. it is now down a ways--he writes a lot.

Paco said...

Ok, I found it ( here). Sure, the vote was scripted, but that's precisely because the bill is so unpopular. Who knows how many Democrats would actually have voted against the bill had they not had Pelosi's permission? Depends on their appetite for political Russian roulette.

That's an interesting blog, incidentally. And I quite agree with this point: "Bottom line, though pro-lifers were celebrating the passage of Stupak, they were played for suckers."

Larry Sheldon said...

Make that holycoast.com.

Gee whiz.

Larry Sheldon said...

Yes he really is interesting.

He has a quartet ane sites conneted with that, but I don't think I know what his day job is.

Easy to read.

Larry Sheldon said...

Maybe you should close-to-comments every item after a year or so.