The contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Senate OKs health care measure, reaching milestone
Senate Democrats passed a landmark health care bill in a climactic Christmas Eve vote that could define President Barack Obama's legacy and usher in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in the country's history.
The 60-39 vote on a cold winter morning capped months of arduous negotiations and 24 days of floor debate. It also followed a succession of failures by past congresses to get to this point. Vice President Joe Biden presided as 58 Democrats and two independents voted "yes." Republicans unanimously voted "no."
The tally far exceeded the simple majority required for passage.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul
Republicans win Generic Congressional Ballot
Republican candidates now have an eight-point lead over Democrats, their biggest lead of the year, in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.
The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for GOP candidates held steady over the past week, but support for Democrats slipped by a point.
Men prefer GOP candidates by 19 points over Democrats, while women are evenly divided between the two. Among voters not affiliated with either party, Republicans lead by a 43% to 19% margin. Republicans have held the lead on the ballot for over four months now. But since early November their lead has steadily increased.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot
McCain, GOP secretly courting another Dem to switch
Republicans are stepping up their efforts to persuade more House Democrats to switch parties and are zeroing in on a second-term Pennsylvanian who acknowledged the efforts but said he has "no plans" to do so.
Democratic Rep. Chris Carney received a phone call Wednesday from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asking him to consider becoming a Republican, a top GOP official told POLITICO.
Carney's office at first did not comment other than to acknowledge the call, but Carney released a statement Wednesday night saying, in part, "I appreciate the Republican Party's outreach, but I have no plans to change parties."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30942.html
Opinion:
Merry Christmas from Democrat-controlled Senate – the start of health care take over
Democrats did it – they did it to us all.
They passed the Reid bill on health care and it now heads for conference committee negotiations with House Democrats to smooth out differences.
While a difficult conference could erupt, it is more likely the Obama staffers will exert extreme pressures to reach a compatible agreement. Federal funding of abortion will be a sticking point as will the lack of a “public option” in the Senate version. “Public Option” is the disguised pathway to socialized medicine.
Count on a compromise bill to emerge with the New Year. Given their dominating majorities in both houses, the Democrat scheme is unstoppable. Passage underscores the crucial importance of next year's election.
Democrats may celebrate their victory, but the act recalls what Communists said after early demonstrations against the government were put down with force. “A few more victories such as this, and the government will fall”. Democrats are in much the same position. Passage of the Senate bill came on a strict party line vote. No Republicans voted for it.
Democrats say they plan to campaign on their health care passage as they stand for re-election next November. Polling results so far indicate that is not a good idea. Most Americans oppose the health care bill. For the record, it will be shortly past the New Year celebrations before an accurate polling process can accurately gauge public reaction to this morning’s Senate vote and the process that will follow/
Republicans need 40 additional seats to take over control of the House.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/12/22/the-reid-bill-coercive-and-unconstitutional/
The Reid Bill: coercive and unconstitutional
Pajama’s Media
A few years ago, Hilton Kramer and I commissioned a series of essays for The New Criterion on the illiberal underside of liberalism. We later published revised versions of the essays under the title The Betrayal of Liberalism: How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control. I mention this now not only to help readers out with their last-minute Christmas shopping but also to highlight the message of our subtitle: “How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control.” It is one of the underappreciated ironies of our age, I believe, that many who call themselves “liberals” habitually support policies that are distinctly illiberal — often, indeed, are downright coercive — in their effect.
A proper anatomy of this phenomenon would take a book. It might start with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose deficient sense of the reality of other people could never compete with the satisfaction he took in contemplating his own virtue. And it might end with the revolutionary health care bill now wending its way through the U.S. Congress. Of course, the people touting the bill say — perhaps they even believe — that it will be good for Americans and that it will save money. Critics (of whom I am one) say that it will be a catastrophically expensive suite of legislation that will limit choice, impede medical innovation, and degrade the quality and timely delivery of medical care.
Like any ambitious piece of legislation, however, the bill to restructure American health care raises issues that go far beyond its primary purpose. The President touched on this obliquely in his “precipice” gaffe: we are, he said, “on the precipice of achievement . . . that will touch the lives of nearly every American.”
“Precipice,” “threshold,” whatever: he is right, anyway, that if the current bill becomes law it “will touch the lives of nearly every American.”
How will it “touch” us? Let me count the ways. Colloquially, first of all, as when we speak of “touching” someone for money. (What easy touches we have all turned out to be!)
But it will touch us in other ways as well. To appreciate one central way in which the bill will touch our lives, consider “Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional,” the somber essay the eminent legal scholar Richard Epstein has written. (It appears on the web site of PointofLaw.com, but like so much important commentary these days, I came across it here, at Instapundit.) If you read nothing else this holiday season, read this. It is not cheering, exactly, but it is, after its fashion, bracing. For it not only makes good on its subtitle, explaining “Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional,” it also lays bare the coercive heart of the bill.
Really, the whole essay is worth reading, but here are a couple of snippets to set your heart beating:
On the one hand, the Reid Bill depends on a combination of huge general tax increases, which is coupled with special levies on industries such as medical-device and pharmaceutical companies. These tax revenues are then used to fund subsidies for large segments of the population in order to allow them to purchase qualified health-care plans that are sold through a set of State Exchanges that the Reid Bill creates. In order to prevent these subsidies from flowing through to the various health-insurance issuers, the Reid Bill imposes extensive obligations on any health-insurance issuer or health-plan provider that wishes to participate within the system in order to keep them from capturing subsidies meant for others. The effect of the subsidies is to increase the level of health care that will be demanded in the United States. The effect of the regulations is likely to be to impose huge costs on various health-insurance companies as they struggle to meet the influx of demand when they are at the outer limit of their capacity.
There are at this point enormous uncertainties about how this entire scheme will play out. My view is that it will prove ruinous on all three fronts. The general public tax increases will be so sharp that it is unlikely that they will generate additional revenues. The subsidies will be so large that the demand for medical services will be left largely unsatisfied, so two consequences are likely. First, an increased queuing for various health care services is to be expected. Second, there will be increased pressure to exclude large groups of people from the system, on the lines of Massachusetts’s recent decision to cut from its system 31,000 legal immigrant aliens (who pay taxes but do not vote).
Pour yourself some eggnog, and don’t stint on the brandy. Then look at this:
Furthermore, on the supply side of the market, all health-insurance companies will find themselves in an impossible dilemma. If they decide to offer their health-insurance plans outside the State Exchanges, they will be unable to compete for the subsidized consumers who are only able to spend their tax dollars within the framework of the State Exchanges. Their position will be worse because they shall continue to be subject to all present mandates and regulations that have an impact on their business. Insurers outside the Exchanges also face the likely prospect that they will still be further taxed and regulated to help finance the intolerable burdens that arise under the subsidized insurance supplied within the State Exchange system.
This level of systemic coercion frames the debate about the constitutionality of the Reid Bill. Those parties that do not wish to suffer the Bill’s regulations in order to gain access to a subsidized consumer base are not free to compete in an unregulated market. Direct federal and state government regulation remains a fixed feature of their life. Government regulators at the state and federal levels have both the power and the motive to hit non-Exchange health insurance issuers with a range of taxes and regulations that could quickly make their economic position intolerable.
The twin burdens of Professor Epstein’s essay are to show 1) the coercive nature of what he calls “the Reid bill” that is on the cusp of being passed by the Senate and 2) to show why, as a point of law, several aspects of the bill raise serious questions about its Constitutionality. I think Professor Epstein makes a powerful case, though I have my doubts about whether a Constitutional challenge would be successful. Still, it is worth understanding the case and it is worth reminding ourselves why the Constitution is important. The Constitution was framed in order to enshrine certain rights and to protect people from capricious interference from the state. The larger question we face, larger even than the fate of this obscene piece of legislation, is to what extent the state still respects the provisions of the Constitution that its servants have sworn to uphold. Richard Epstein has outlined a devastating case. What happens next?
2.
Senator Calls Two Thirds Of Americans Opposing Health Bill “Right-wing Militia” Racists
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse today called opponents of the Obamacare bill lunatic extremists during a floor speech, failing to account for the fact that in every leading opinion poll almost two thirds of Americans fall into that category.
“They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama.” Whitehouse commented, adding “The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militias and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”
Whitehouse cited an editorial by The relatively unknown Manchester Journal Inquirer in which the editor described the Republican party as being “dominated by the lunatic fringe”, adding that it “has poisoned itself with hate.”
Clearly, both the Senator and the bastions of journalistic integrity at the Manchester Journal Inquirer have not bothered to look at the latest opinion polls on the healthcare bill.
Had they done so they would have discovered that despite the progression of the legislation through the Senate, it is still highly unpopular with the American people.
The latest Rasmussen Reports weekly tracking update shows that 41% of voters nationwide favor the bill and 55% are opposed. Those figures are essentially unchanged from a week ago. This the fifth straight week with support for the legislation between 38% and 41%.
Almost two thirds of Americans oppose the bill in a poll from CNN eleven days ago, while 51% oppose in a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.
An NBC/Wall St Journal poll found that just 32% believe the healthcare overhaul is a good idea, while only 36% pledged support in an AP-GFK poll.
When a journalist from the Washington Times approached Whitehouse, he denied that he was intimating that opponents of the healthcare bill were racist, and also denied that he’d even said the word “aryan”.
According to Senator Whitehouse’s logic, this means that 97% of the Washington Times’ readers are virulent racists.
Senator Whitehouse’s unfounded “racist” slur is yet another example of the establishment left playing the phony race card in an attempt to slant the debate.
Injecting the idea of discrimination in an effort to polarize a group of people is no different to actually engaging in the act of discrimination.
3.
Richard Epstein: The Reid Bill Is Blatantly Unconstitutional
Andy McCarthy NROcorner.com
At PointOfLaw.com, the distinguished University of Chicago constitutional scholar Richard Epstein provides a painstaking, withering analysis of the healthcare legislation wending its way through the Senate. He concludes that it is clearly unconstitutional. The essay is lengthy and, in places, complex; but it is brilliantly done, accessible, and compelling. [Thanks to Roger Kimball and Glenn Reynolds.]
Most of the constitutional analyses I've read, such as this superb one by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, have focused on the limitations on Congress's power — to wit, that the Commerce Clause does not vest Congress with the authority to coerce Americans to purchase health insurance as a condition of living in our country. Prof. Epstein's focus is very different, and a heartening reminder for capitalists in the age of Obama. Drawing on the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law, and on the Supreme Court's rate-regulation jurisprudence, Epstein concludes that the Constitution assures that "any firm in a regulated market be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return on its accumulated capital investment." (Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch (1988)). Applying these principles, Epstein concludes:
The Reid Bill emphatically fails this test by imposing sharp limitations on the ability of health-insurance companies to raise fees or exclude coverage. Moreover, the Reid Bill forces on these regulated firms onerous new obligations that they will not be able to fund from their various revenue sources. The squeeze between the constricted revenue sources allowable under the Reid Bill and the extensive new legal obligations it imposes is likely to result in massive cash crunch that could drive the firms that serve the individual and small-group health-insurance markets into bankruptcy.
While the insurance companies have been utterly demonized by Democrats in this debate, the fact is that there is a competitive market for healthcare insurance. As Epstein explains, "to justify rate regulation" — which is titanic in the Senate bill — "there needs to be some evidence of the existence of monopoly." As there is and can be no such evidence, there is no rationale for the bill's pervasive rate regulation (and for the stifling price-controls that Epstein shows must inevitably result in delayed, reduced, and rationed services). If this bill were really about controlling costs — rather than controlling lives — Epstein observes that it would be a simple matter to repeal the federal law (the McCarran-Ferguson Act) that "authorizes state barriers to out-of-state competition. That one legislative fix should reduce prices and expand access, but not cost the federal government a dime."
For what it's worth, I think it would be worth having a vigorous constitutional argument about capitalism. A free society is only free because its people, rather than its government, are sovereign, and it only needs a Constitution to protect individual liberty from encroachment by the government. As Prof. Epstein demonstrates, that is what our Constitution does. But this is the antithesis of President Obama's vision of a new Constitution (or a new Bill of Rights) that proclaims what government must do for you rather than what it cannot do to you. Alas, as I've discussed before, while that sounds admirable it is monstrous, since government has nothing to give — it can do for one only by taking from another. If that is to be our system, we are no longer free.
Healthcare is not and has never been a "right." Why are we so afraid to say that? When the other side says, "Healthcare is a right," I want to say, "What healthcare? Abortion? Botox? 'Preventive' care?" What other "rights" do you have that I am required to pay for? A house? A job? A day at the beach? Since when? Only in Washington will those questions get you expelled from polite company. The American people are ready to have them asked and to have a real debate about them — not a 2000-page power-grab in the dark of the night before Christmas.
What you have a right to is no unreasonable government interference with your ability to purchase healthcare in a competitive market — i.e., a fair market in which government polices against fraud and does skew the playing field by interfering unreasonably with providers and insurers. That's a valuable right, and it has delivered the greatest healthcare system in human history. We are crazy to damage it more than we already have — and even crazier to allow it to be done on the pretexts the Obama Democrats are offering.
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