Introducing ObamaCare 2.0: The 2,309-Page Scam That Will Live in Infamy

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Philip Klein of the American Spectator:

Shortly before midnight on Sunday, Democrats released a 2,309 page health care bill that will start the process of reconciliation — but don’t let that fool you, it’s not the actual reconciliation bill with all the changes you’ve been reading about. Instead, as Rep. Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member on the Budget Committee, explained to me last week, this is just the “shell” bill — the vehicle that Democrats need to get moving on health care. Once the bill gets approved (likely Monday), Democrats will send this phantom bill over to the Rules Committee, where it will be  stripped, and then they’ll insert in all of the actual changes that they’ve negotiated. . . .

Got that? Here’s more:

The House Budget Committee on Sunday evening released text that will serve as the base legislation for the changes the House will seek to the Senate bill this week. . . . The measure posted online does not include the substantive changes to the Senate healthcare bill that House Democrats will seek. Those changes will be offered during the markups in the Budget and Rules committees, which the budget panel hopes to begin on Monday afternoon.

More at Michelle Malkin, Riehl World View, Da Tech Guy, Fire Andrea Mitchell, Another Black Conservative, Red State, Doug Ross, Sundries Shack, Melissa Clouthier and Memeorandum. Also see Paul Ryan’s op-ed column proposing a different vision of health-care reform.

This whole Pelosi procedure is nothing but a thumb in the eye of the Constitution. The House could merely have an up-or-down vote on the Senate version of the bill, but Pelosi doesn’t have enough votes to do that — she’d lose the votes of several Democrats who have principled objections to various measures in the Senate version — and so instead they’re going through this bizarre kabuki dance.

Nucking futz, and all of it, BTW, is because Scott Brown got elected in Massachusetts. Before Brown’s election, the Democrats had enough votes in the Senate to get cloture, so that a House-Senate conference committee could resolve the differences and the resulting final bill would be approved in both chambers.

But then Brown got elected as the “41st vote,” the Senate Democrats can’t get cloture now, and what we’ve seen for the past two months has been a desperate effort by Obama and Pelosi to escape the consequences of that election — essentially bypassing the Senate.

Anybody who thinks the Democrats are going to get away with this has got another think coming.

UPDATE: David Axelrod boasts:

“I am absolutely confident we are going to be successful,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
And Axelrod, who was a top strategist on Obama’s 2008 campaign, said he relished the prospect of Republicans campaigning on a repeal of the legislation in 2010. . . .
“Let’s have that fight,” he said. “Make my day.”

Video via Hot Air:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mr. Axelrod: The fight is not between you and the GOP. It is between you and the American people.

TUESDAY: STOP OBAMACARE 2.0! BE THERE!

(P.S.: Don’t compare this procedure to making sausage — that’s an insult to the fine sausage at Romano’s Market.)

28 comments

  4. On your latter point, about the Administration’s fight being ultimately with the American people, it will be interesting to see whether their demonization of the Republican party barely sustains them, or leads to a total collapse like in Massachusetts, in November.

    It is interesting how their message and appeal seems to be geared toward the progressive left, while the progressive left frames them as centrist or center-right. I think they’re getting the worst of both worlds, and just by telling the American people that passing the bill is going to change that, isn’t going to change that.

  5. On your latter point, about the Administration’s fight being ultimately with the American people, it will be interesting to see whether their demonization of the Republican party barely sustains them, or leads to a total collapse like in Massachusetts, in November.

    It is interesting how their message and appeal seems to be geared toward the progressive left, while the progressive left frames them as centrist or center-right. I think they’re getting the worst of both worlds, and just by telling the American people that passing the bill is going to change that, isn’t going to change that.

  9. The only way this gets stopped (I fear) is the American people freaking out and scarring the more sane members of the Democratic party in refusing to follow Dear Leader and the rest of the party leadership off the lemming cliffs.

  10. The only way this gets stopped (I fear) is the American people freaking out and scarring the more sane members of the Democratic party in refusing to follow Dear Leader and the rest of the party leadership off the lemming cliffs.

  14. […] Introducing ObamaCare 2.0: The 2,309-Page Scam That Will Live in Infamy More at Michelle Malkin, Riehl World View, Da Tech Guy, Fire Andrea Mitchell, Another Black Conservative, Red State, Doug Ross, Sundries Shack, Melissa Clouthier and Memeorandum. Also see Paul Ryan’s op-ed column proposing a different vision of health-care reform. […]

  16. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are far behind the cutting edge of political invention as practiced in Wisconsin.

    End the Frankenstein Veto

    Quip:
    Mary:  I absolutely do not want you to buy that boat.
    John:  Let me simplify what you have said.
    I absolutely do not want you to buy that boat.

    [edited] We want to remove the authority of the Governor to unilaterally change legislation by combining parts of two or more sentences to create new sentences and new laws.

    Here’s how the Frankenstein Veto works. The Wisconsin constitution allows governors to apply a “veto in part”. Wisconsin’s governors have interpreted this to remove individual words from legislation, stitching together the remaining words to create new sentences. These new sentences can dramatically alter a bill and are now being used to spend money no legislator voted for.

    For instance, Governor Doyle deleted most of the words from several pages of the 2006 state budget, stitching together just enough to authorize spending $427 million more tax dollars.

  17. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are far behind the cutting edge of political invention as practiced in Wisconsin.

    End the Frankenstein Veto

    Quip:
    Mary:  I absolutely do not want you to buy that boat.
    John:  Let me simplify what you have said.
    I absolutely do not want you to buy that boat.

    [edited] We want to remove the authority of the Governor to unilaterally change legislation by combining parts of two or more sentences to create new sentences and new laws.

    Here’s how the Frankenstein Veto works. The Wisconsin constitution allows governors to apply a “veto in part”. Wisconsin’s governors have interpreted this to remove individual words from legislation, stitching together the remaining words to create new sentences. These new sentences can dramatically alter a bill and are now being used to spend money no legislator voted for.

    For instance, Governor Doyle deleted most of the words from several pages of the 2006 state budget, stitching together just enough to authorize spending $427 million more tax dollars.

  19. The whole Obamacare episode is just a symptom of an out of control federal government that has been spending at unsustainable levels for the last few decades. Obama just upped it a notch or two (or three) and has decided that spending and crippling levels of debt aren’t a problem. You’re talking about people that view money as an abstraction and spend accordingly. The reality is that the political process in this country is broken and that more than likely the United States will have to default on debt at some point in the future. Obamacare will just put us there sooner.

  20. The whole Obamacare episode is just a symptom of an out of control federal government that has been spending at unsustainable levels for the last few decades. Obama just upped it a notch or two (or three) and has decided that spending and crippling levels of debt aren’t a problem. You’re talking about people that view money as an abstraction and spend accordingly. The reality is that the political process in this country is broken and that more than likely the United States will have to default on debt at some point in the future. Obamacare will just put us there sooner.

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