You Decide

Exceptionally well stated commentary about the senate health care vote from Powelineblog.com. 

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"Republicans didn't have the votes to stop the Senate's Obamacare bill this morning. But they had the better argument. Oklahoma's magnificent Senator (and Dr.) Tom Coburn spoke for a lot of us in explaining his vote against the Democrats' bill:

This vote is indeed historic. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. In the year of 2009, a Congress ignored the coming economic storm and impending bankruptcy of our entitlement programs and embarked on an ideological crusade to bring our nation as close to single-payer, government-run health care as possible. If this bill becomes law, future generations will rue this day and I will do everything in my power to work toward its repeal. This bill will ration care, cut Medicare, increase premiums, fund abortion and bury our children in debt.

This process was not compromise. This process was corruption. This bill passed because votes were bought and sold using the issue of abortion as a bargaining chip. The abortion provision alone makes this bill the most arrogant piece of legislation I have seen in Congress. Only the most condescending politician can believe it is appropriate to force Americans to pay for other people's abortions and to coerce medical professional to take the lives of unborn children.

I would quibble only with Senator Coburn's attribution of "stupidity" to congressional Democrats. The House and Senate bills are indeed stupidly destructive of the best health care system in the world, and they will impose unbearable costs on the American public. But if and when a final bill is enacted next year, the Democrats will have achieved their goal of control over the medical means of life and death. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and tyranny as well as its staggering profligacy, all of which are well represented in the Obamacare bills.

Politico reports that the timetable for passage of a final bill has now slipped to February. Ed Morrissey and Andrew McCarthy tentatively see a ray of light in the delay, and Ramesh Ponnuru also envisions the possible defeat of Obamacare in the House. Later is better than sooner, but don't be deceived. The Democrats have the whip hand.

Grounds for optimism exist in the opposition to the government takeover of health care that runs deep and wide. Somehow, the American people have seen through the bill of goods they are being sold despite the Obama administration's best efforts, the Democrats' control of the process and the unfailing assistance of their allies in the media.

Democrats count on the opposition to subside and the public to acquiesce. Yet the Roman spectacle to which Obama and the congressional Democrats have treated us will be hard to erase from our memory. It will constitute an obstacle to our pacification and a spur to our resistance.

JOHN adds: To arrogance, corruption and stupidity we should perhaps add self-delusion. Harry Reid says that the public will greet passage of his government medicine bill with "joy and happiness." These are not people who can be compromised with or deflected from their drive toward socialism. They can only be defeated, starting in November."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/12/025228.php