I Love Politics!
Don't you LOVE politics?? So much is happening tonight my head is spinning....In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will use the reconciliation process to pass part of the health-care reform bill. He stated dems plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process that repubs used many times.
The current plan is for the House to approve the Senate-passed bill from late last year, despite serious objections to numerous provisions. Both houses then would pass a second bill immediately, making changes in the first measure before both could take effect. The second bill would be debated under rules that bar a filibuster, meaning it could clear by majority vote in the Senate without Democrats needing the 60-vote super majority now beyond their reach.
That strategy would leave in place the Senate language on abortion. It would allow health plans receiving federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace to cover abortion, provided they pay for it only with money collected from policyholders. The House bill would have prohibited health plans receiving subsidies from covering abortions.
Also happening is Alan Grayson gathering 50 co-sponsors to his Medicare buy-in bill. Every indication has always been that there is overwhelming support for a Medicare buy-in among Congressional Democrats. This could very well pass as a stand alone bill, especially in 2011 once filibuster reform has taken place. This is definitely one of the ways that progressives can viably continue the fight for real health reform no matter what happens to the current bill.
We're just weeks away from final passage of health insurance reform. It's been a long, long year and we are seeing the end of the tunnel. Republicans will not stop fighting, they will obstruct up until the pen is in President Obamas left hand and he begins the signing. As a frequent reader of Huffington Post, I almost always read the comments section to the always interesting and informative posts by some of the best writers in the business. Osage comments frequently on HuffPo and he does such a great job. I would like to leave you with this one tonight, he sums up Republicans perfectly....
TODAY’S REPUBLICANS ARE AMERICA'S ENEMY WITHIN
Republicans ARE practicing seditious DEMAGOGUERY and anti-democracy OBSTRUCTIONISM intended to destabilize our economy for purposes of political exploitation.
Republicans AREN'T making a sincere effort to STOP the bleeding THEIR incompetent leadership and failed policies created. Instead, they're using inflammatory lies and accusations as a smokescreen to conceal their subversive agenda, which is to cause President Obama and America to fail so they can blame Democrats for the consequences of THEIR calamitous mismanagement.
Republicans ARE preposterously professing that THEIR disgraceful political WHORING had nothing to do with the banking, real estate, stock market and employment catastrophes that resulted.
Republicans ARE trying to hamstring Democrats to prevent them from repairing the damage caused during a Republican presidency that was irresponsibly enabled by Republican Senators and Representatives.
Republicans ARE offering ridiculous arguments meant solely to disrupt and prevent progressive change. They'd rather divide America and create political gridlock than endure the political consequences of effective Democratic governance.
Republicans AREN'T the LOYAL OPPOSITION; they ARE the ENEMY WITHIN whose mercenary personal priorities have eroded their moral and ethical standards to the point that duplicity and betrayal are their preferred modus operandi.
It's one thing to advocate their conservative beliefs; it's another thing entirely to willfully sabotage America's government because a successful Democratic presidency would not be vulnerable to the greed, fears and hatreds that have produced and sustained the radical Republican anti-government corporatism and anti-Christian faux theocracies that are poisoning and crippling American society.
Osage
