Health Care Bill Passed...

Updates all over the place, so keep on reading.

Here's the final tally of the votes on the Health Care Bill.  34 Democrats voted no.  Zero Republicans voted yes. So the only bipartisan efforts were in opposition to this bill.   This is a wholly Democratic owned bill.  Here are those Democrats who voted no.
And.. were you aware that with the passage of this Health Care Reform Bill the government is also taking over the student loan business?

At 3:59 Sunday afternoon, Ace posted that Stupak had caved, agreeing to change his vote in exchange for an Executive Order and the chance to speak on the floor. The EO, Ace says, is a useless piece of paper:

Here's the EO: Worthless paper.
The President can not (or at least could not, back when we were a Republic) rescind a law at the stroke of a pen, or deny someone (or some organization) federal money to which they are entitled.

Dr. Dan Benishek is running against Stupak in Michigan this fall.  Here is Dr. Benishek's facebook page.  I have never contributed to a  political race outside my own state (I don't contribute much to political races at all, actually).  I am not sure I am ready to start now, but it's tempting.  Within seconds of Stupak's dishonorable backdown, his opponent's FB page was flooding with statements of support.

Stupak sold his bill for the EO and, probably, Three quarters of a million bucks he got for three airports in Michigan. 
Here is what the President once said about changing laws via Executive Orders.
The HG says that Stupak can make paper airplanes with the EO, and that's all the good it's going to do him. It was an EO, after all, that the President signed when he 'closed' Gitmo.  You remember when he 'closed' Gitmo, right? BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

Huffington Post: Protests On The House Floor:

A protester sitting in the House gallery just disrupted the early business going on in the chamber by screaming out: “The people have said no!” and “You took an oath.” Leadership tried to gavel the members back into session and ordered the Sargent in Arms to remove the unruly man. Before he was escorted out, however, he did receive a fair amount of applause from the Republican side of the aisle.

Barney Frank chastised the Repubicans for cheering for the protestor. Thomas Jefferson would have cheered the protestor.  But we have long known that we have no Thomas Jeffersons in office, cheering from the R. side notwithstanding.  We know this having watched the Patriot Act,  Bail Outs, TARP, and Stimulus packages pass without meaningful opposition from either side.

Mike Flynn:

The Democrats and the White House are lost in a legislative “fog of war” right now. They are focused on twisting enough arms, offering jobs and negotiating specific “deals” (bribes) to get them to 216 votes. Their attention and energy is focused exclusively on a final vote in the House tonight. No one is looking even one minute beyond that horizon. They are like a general who pours all his reserves into taking a symbolic bridge, never realizing that his lines have already collapsed and his flanks have been turned. They may take the bridge and get to 216 votes. (I’ve learned to never bet against Congressional leadership and an Administration united for a single legislative victory. )...
What they don’t realize is that today’s vote isn’t the end, but just a new beginning in the debate over health care. Buckle up, because if they manage to cobble together enough votes to pass the Senate Health Bill today, we’re set for weeks and perhaps months of a constitutional and political crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

In a matter of hours after House passage of the Senate Bill, the state of Virginia will file suit in federal court. The Commonwealth will be joined in the suit by a dozen other states. I expect a flood of additional lawsuits. The suits will be based on the provision that requires every American to purchase health insurance. (This is how the Dems ‘crack down’ on the insurance industry; by requiring everyone to buy its product?) Because this is an individual mandate, virtually every American has standing to file suit against this provision. Also, it is in direct conflict with state law in at least two states, Idaho and Virginia.

[...]
A representative democracy cannot long endure a political class that is so out of touch with the populace. In some respects, what happens tonight is almost beside the point. The politics are set. Some Democrats are deluding themselves that they can put this behind them and somehow survive in November. They are most assuredly wrong.

Emphasis mine.  The mandated insurance purchase plan is such a stinker that friends of the HG's in-laws, staunch liberals in the natural health business, simply refuse to believe it is true.  They insist that Obama simply would not do that, and the information that insurance purchases are mandated to everybody (these folks are uninsured BY CHOICE) simply must be part of a Republican disinformation campaign.  It's breath-takingly stupid, to be frank, and I am obnoxious enough to enjoy their coming disillusionment except that their willful blindness and that of others like them is punishing all of us.



Randy Barnett at Volokh writes on the Constitutionality of Obama's plan:

As I note at the end, to assess the constitutionality of this or any other measure we need to separate three distinct inquiries that are often run together:

Ultimately, there are three ways to think about whether a law is constitutional: Does it conflict with what the Constitution says? Does it conflict with what the Supreme Court has said? Will five justices accept a particular argument? 

When all three of these considerations point in the same direction, we can be supremely confident in the result. When any of the three point in different directions, our confidence that we know the outcome should be tempered and the potential for a “surprise” decision increases.

He refers to the Gore Bush decision as an example, which made one of his readers angry.  But...


Instapundit linked it and says:

Reader Jim Murray writes: “Randy, like his critic, forgets to mention Bush v. Gore was a 7-2 decision to overturn what Florida was doing. The continued misrepresentation of the decision as 5-4 (the decision on the remedy) allows the liberals to maintain the election was stolen. Of course, they also neglect to recall the later unofficial recount performed by newspapers that found Bush won via actual votes.”

Democrat Alcee Hastings:
Rules?  We make 'em up as we go along...
That's another big cluebat about why we have a problem on the Hill.  They really do think they are some sort of rudderless oligarchy with the right to make up rules as they go along.

Vote first.  Figure out the bill later.  Those voting for this bill have no idea how much it is going to cost.  Think about that for a moment.  Which of you signs a contract without a clue how much it's going to cost you?  Congressmen don't do that in private life, either.  The difference?  It's not costing those voting on it anything- their own cadillac health care plan isn't touched by this.  They are not going to live under the conditions they have imposed on all of us, and the Democrats have repeatedly refused ammendments to make their own health care plan apply to them.  It's costing all of us, and they have no idea how much and are unwilling to wait for their own guys to analyze the cost:

The Obama administration’s chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notified Republican leaders Saturday that the “very tight time frame” and “complexity” of the Democrats’ health spending bill would prevent them from fully analyzing the costs and efficacy of the bill before the House voted on the legislation. The letter was in response to a request from House and Senate Republicans.The Chief Actuary, Richard S. Foster, wrote: “In your letter, you requested that we provide the updated actuarial estimates in time for your review prior to the expected House debate and vote on this legislation on March 21,2010. I regret that my staff and I will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the legislation.”

Mark Steyn- It's even worse than we can imagine.  He has written before with great passion, erudition, and persuasiveness about nationalized health care changes forever the relationship of the citizens to the government, and not for the better.  Read him again, especially if you disagree with this point.  Copy and save it, write out your thoughts on why he is wrong.   Then come back and read them a year from now, and a year after that, and a year after that.  There will come a day when, if you are intellectually honest, you will recognize how wrong you were to support imposing this monstrosity on all of us.  More likely, there will come a day when you will think, "Why did I think government rationing of health care (or some other point which you currently think will never happen) was a bad thing?" without ever noticing how far you've come down the slipper slope.

Nancy Pelosi insists that Health Care is a right and not a privilege.  I know that sounds real pretty and warm and caring, but what other 'rights' do we have that require others to provide them rather than just get out of our way and let us get them?   At what point will the government mandate that some we track students in school and force a certain number into health care fields so that the government can supply this 'right?'  If this seems absurd to you, why?  If  you have a right to health care that is created and then enforced by the government, why would that not mean that the government has the right to see to it that the requisite number of health care providers exist to be sure your 'rights' are met?

John Hindraker at Powerline thinks that even though the bill has passed, all is not lost:

With Stupak's collapse, passage of the Democrats' government medicine bill is assured. This is a dark day in American history; one of the darkest. But there are many reasons for optimism. Here are a few:
* The health care battle is just beginning. Next, the Senate will try to enact the House's "fixes" to the original Senate bill. Some Senators say that won't happen. If not, then President Obama has the option of signing the original Senate bill--now passed by the House--Cornhusker Kickback and all. I assume he would do that, but the resulting blowback from House Democrats, not to mention the American people, would be something to behold.
* The health care bill's taxes will go into effect promptly, but its substantive provisions are, for the most part, deferred for four years. This means that we have plenty of time to repeal the legislation. Sure, it will take a new Congress and new President. But repealing this disaster of a bill will by a rallying cry for the American people for years to come. Moreover, even if the Republicans only take over the House in November, and not the Senate, won't it be possible to throw roadblocks in the way of the bill's implementation? Won't budget appropriations be necessary to sustain the various federal tentacles the bill seeks to establish? What will happen if the House simply refuses to fund them?

 I hope this results in sweeping genuine conservative, Constitutional minded people into office this fall, but I'd be satisfied with just sweeping out the entire Augean stables that is D.C. because I want to make a strong point to those in office that they cannot ignore the voters like this.  And then I want their cadillac health care plan completely eliminated, and they can stop seeing public service as a golden ticket to a free ride for the rest of their lives, too. 

The IRS and the Health Care Bill?  Oh, yeah, check out this link from JHoward at PW on this report from Republican Ways and Means politicians about:

how the Democrats’ health care bill vastly expands the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and strengthens the heavy hand of the IRS in dealing with taxpayers.

“If the Democrats’ health care bill becomes law, the IRS could have to hire more than 16,000 additional agents, auditors and other workers just to enforce all the new taxes and penalties,” said Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI). “It is a dangerous expansion of the IRS’s power and reach into the lives of virtually every American.”

Highlights of report, which is entitled “The Wrong Prescription: Democrats’ Health Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority,” include:

* IRS agents verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage;
* IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,250 or 2 percent of your income (whichever is greater) for failure to prove that you have purchased “minimum essential coverage;”
* IRS can confiscate your tax refund;
* IRS audits are likely to increase;
* IRS will need up to $10 billion to administer the new health care program this decade;
* IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes from Americans; and
* Nearly half of all these new individual mandate taxes will be paid by Americans earning less than 300 percent of poverty ($66,150 for a family of four.)

The Republicans noted that despite all these new mandates on Americans, the Democrats prohibit the IRS from imposing these same taxes and penalties on illegal immigrants

click through for links to the rest.  I totally want the IRS with its grubby paws in my family's health care decisions.

Megan McArdle:

...politicians shouldn't feel that the best route to electoral success is to lie to the voters, and then ignore them.

We're not a parliamentary democracy, and we don't have the mechanisms, like votes of no confidence, that parliamentary democracies use to provide a check on their politicians.  The check that we have is that politicians care what the voters think.  If that slips away, America's already quite toxic politics will become poisonous.

There's a lot that is disgraceful, ugly, and unbecoming a free nation about this Health Care Bill.  But one of the things I find really both amusing, in a macabre sort of way, and an offense to my intelligence is how, on the one hand:
1.Health Insurance companies are an evil, money grubbing, mafia

Therefore, in order to 'reform' Health Care:

2. Everybody must support the evil, money grubbing mafia health insurance industry buying something from them with their own money.

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