September 30, 2009
RUSH: “Government-Run Health Care by Next Thursday? — The Washington Post front page blares today: ‘Prospects for Public Option Dim in Senate.'” This is all because of the vote yesterday in committee. I got a bunch of e-mails from people last night. “Hey, Rush! Hey, Rush! It failed! It failed and they didn’t tell you about it until after your show so you couldn’t rip them to shreds.” Don’t be fooled, folks. “[T]he Senate Finance Committee did vote down two amendments that each would have added a government-run insurance plan to the committee’s health care bill. But two key Democrats who voted against Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) public plan, Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Tom Carper (D-DE), voted for Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) version.
“According to an independent analysis of Senate Democrat public statements on the public option, that raises the number of Democrats on record supporting a public option from 47 to 49. Moreover, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairmen of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee [said] that Democrats ‘comfortably’ have the remaining votes to reach 51 and pass a public plan once the debate moves to the House floor.” Now, here’s how this is going to happen. Brian Darling works at the Heritage Foundation. He’s director of the US Senate relations at Heritage.
“President Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people,” just like bringing the Olympics to Chicago and over half Chicago doesn’t want the Olympics. But, you know, the small-R republican that defines this country, representative republic, it’s gone. It’s gone. We may as well have a semi-dictatorship now. We may as well have a semi-tyranny now. Because the small-R republican that defined this form of government has just been white-washed away. Here’s how they’re going to do this: “The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill” that has nothing to do with health care. You say, “Well, Rush, how do they do that?”
Well, they can do anything they want. “[N]obody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill. The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a ‘conceptual framework’ of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage. The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate: Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework.
“Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill,” Baucus’ committee and Harkin’s committee, the HELP committee. So you’ll have two Senate Committees which have passed the bills “which will allow [Reid] to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor. During the mark-up last week, members had difficulty offering amendments and trying to make constructive changed because they lacked actual legislative text and Baucus made unilateral last minute changes. For example, the AP reported that ‘under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working-class families.’
“Step 2,” after the two Senate bills have been introduced on the floor, “Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.” So the two health care bills in the Senate will be merged into one. Now, “Usually, a bill is voted out of committee, and then the Senate takes up the final product of the committee so that all 100 senators can have a hand in the process. With some help from the Obama administration, Reid [alone] will decide what aspects of the HELP and Finance Committee bills to keep.” They’re going to merge this, actually take what Harry Reid and Obama want from the two Senate bills. Then, when that’s done, “Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy…” So let me stop right there, because it’s there’s another step after this to explain how this is all going to happen.
Rush Limbaugh’s transcript continues at his website.
