Senate Plans to Sneak Public Option Through Budget Reconciliation Maneuver – Removes Need for Majority Vote – Obama poll 27% Strongly Approve New Low

The New York Timesarticle, buried under the heading of “Health” then further: “Money and Policy”, reported that Senate Democrats are planning on using budget reconciliation to get a health care bill passed with a “simple majority”. The Democrats have been busy consulting their lawyers to see if they could find a way to push the Public Option through without a full Senate Vote – they believe they have succeeded. The solution is rather simple – Senators only need to prove that the public option would save the government money – and anyone with any common sense and/or a sense of history understands that plans that the government designs to save money (outside of tax cuts) generally ends up costing a fortune; despite figures pulled out of a proverbial hat in order to prove otherwise.

The best part of this whole shenanigans is the fact that Senate Democrats (let alone House Democrats) are blaming Republicans – It’s the Republican’s fault that the Democrats cannot get the “Single Payer (Government controlled Health plan) through because the Democrats don’t control the necessary 60 votes - which, is patently untrue. The Democrats now enjoy what is known as a Super Majority – it is a filibuster prove, rule that allows them to ramrod anything they want past the American people without a peep of opposition (except for cable, Internet, radio, national news and print where the debate can continue). They have the necessary bodies, they apparently do not have enough Democrats in favor of losing their jobs (see angry constituents) – therefore, in order to continue to bamboozle the public (which is now accurately aware that this particular bunch is more than capable of doing just that), the apparent game plan is to blame the Republicans and then attach some questionable math to an even more questionable bill in order to get it passed with less than the normal 60 votes. Apparently, this may also protect those who do vote from being “outed” to the public – otherwise known as constituents who have clearly expressed, under no certain terms, that those who vote in favor of a public option will be seeking employment elsewhere come 2010 or 2012.

This is where John Q. Public can take heart – nothing that has been done, cannot be undone. Simply, laws can be changed an amended. All one needs is a good housecleaning – from the executive to the legislative branch – and the people most certainly are capable of doing so – time and time again. It is the beauty of this form of government. It won’t take long to “fix” the health care system again, with another more reasonable act.

In the meantime, the public option would do the following: offer lower cost insurance to those who currently do not have insurance – or free insurance to those who cannot afford insurance at all – the tab would be picked up by the taxpayer. Further, those employers who cannot afford health benefits, can simply opt out of them, pushing their employees into the public option plan – the fewer American’s who are participating in private plans will cause the Private Insurance Carriers to reduce their workforce – causing a greater burden on the public option and also on the unemployment rolls. The icing on the cake: Congress and certain unions can keep their private health insurance – not opting for the government run program. This could mean a long two years, however, the programs need to be implemented first – which, considering the current efficiency of said government – may make the aforementioned a moot point. (There are a host of other ailments associated with this bill, but for the sake of brevity - and the fact that, to date, no one is addressing the realities of a reduced Private Insurance Force.)

One other little ditty in the New York Times article: The end of life counseling public health option or Death Panels (phrase coined by Sarah Palin - read excellent report here at Hillbuzz) is reported upon in rather graphic terms: via a booklet currently being used on American Troops by the V.A.: New York Times:

Senator Arlen Specter, Democrat of Pennsylvania, called for hearings to investigate a guide used by the government to counsel veterans with critical or terminal illnesses.
On “Fox News Sunday,” H. James Towey, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush, said the guide seemed to encourage people to “hurry up and die.”
The booklet, “Your Life, Your Choices,” asks people to consider whether life would be worth living if, for example, they were in severe pain, relied on a feeding tube or a breathing machine, lived in a nursing home or imposed “a severe financial burden” on family members.
In addition, the booklet asks, “Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘If I’m a vegetable, pull the plug’?” It then explains that people have different ideas of what it means to be a vegetable or to “pull the plug.”
In a bulletin last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs recommended the booklet as a tool to help veterans with “advance care planning.”
Tammy Duckworth, an assistant secretary of veterans affairs, said it was being revised.
But Mr. Towey said, “The document is so fundamentally flawed that the V.A. ought to throw it out.”

One word: despicable.

Although the Times doesn’t specifically tie the End of Life Counseling to the current Public Option plan, one knows it is contained in the language of the house bill – Spector, who will definitely be out of a job, has called for an investigation, by those who are currently planning on passing unwanted legislation through the Senate by dubious means (and by dubious, although the option has the Senates layers blessings, it leaves little open to debate – thereby, Democrats must believe, reducing the public backlash).

President Obama’s approval, has, in less than one year, fallen to 48%, with only 27% of those polled “strongly approving” of the job he’s doing. This is a change downward from 29% last week, a continual decline which began in March of this year (see Stimulus). Congress enjoys less popularity than the President – one can see the handwriting on the wall, and the media and the general public has yet to take the boondoggle in Afghanistan into consideration yet – a huge tactical error on the part of this administration. Add the increase in troop levels in Afghanistan, to the increasing fatalities (which given the history of the country will continue), increasing cost of that front versus Iraq, and an unpopular change in the nation’s health care system, and one can well imagine what political suicide via either arrogance, ideology or stupidly can do to an entire political party.

A Final Thought: One party control (or two for that matter), regardless of party is not what was intended by the founding fathers, and with good cause, the fact that Republican’s enjoyed a majority for six of eight years, and wasted the opportunity through a lack of fiscal restraint, thereby losing the majority to the Democrats, who, apparently, have no restraint whatsoever – is dangerous. The problem now presents itself in that a total reversal is more than probable; with the end result of yet another one-party rule of the nation in the very near future.