Opinion Forum

What’s in the Bill

March 19th, 2010

The Washington Post today published a handy guide to what’s in the Senate health care bill and changes that are in the House reconciliation bill. It’s highly summarized and covers only eight major topics. It’s useful, however, given that the bill posted on the internet is unintelligible.

On abortion, the Senate language is unchanged. People who get their health insurance on the exchanges will still be able to get coverage that includes abortion, although they’ll have to write a separate check for it. Maybe the politicians haven’t heard that money is fungible — or maybe they just think we don’t know it. That means that abortions will still be paid for with taxpayer dollars, directly or indirectly, as they are now through the tax exemption for employer-funded health insurance. This doesn’t bother me, as I’ve said before, but if it bothers you then you might want to pay attention.

Oh, by the way, the health care bill also deals with student loans. Huh?

Looks like we might see the health care reconciliation bill pass in the House this weekend. That will show a high level of trust on the part of House Democrats because they’ll be depending on the Senate to pass the reconciliation bill in order to enact their changes. If the Senate stiffs the House, politicians might rumble in the Capitol with baseball bats. That would be worth the price of admission!

The President will then sign one or two bills with great flourish, declare victory, and continue basking in his presidentialness. The rest of us can just eat cake.

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: abortion, health care, House, Obama, reconciliation, Senate
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

4 Responses to “What’s in the Bill”

Brianna | March 19th, 2010 at 9:29 am

“If the Senate stiffs the House, politicians might rumble in the Capitol with baseball bats.”

If the House passes the bill, the protesters who are planning to be in Washington Saturday might not wait for the Senate to stiff the House with respect to getting out the baseball bats.

Tom | March 19th, 2010 at 11:49 am

Well, I hope not. I’m sure all will remain peaceful. Remember, these aren’t the kinds of people who burn down their neighborhoods if they don’t get what they want. But a fistfight between Barney Frank and John Boehner — that I’d pay to see!

Tom | March 19th, 2010 at 11:59 am

Apparently there’s no end to the chicanery going on in Congress. Politico has a Democratic memo discussing the need to hide a planned future action that would make the CBO’s estimate of the bill’s cost invalid.

larry | March 20th, 2010 at 1:17 pm

Once again we see the Trojan Horse tactic being used by our president and his minions to enhance the control of big government.
I dislike any politician that uses his or her office for personal gain. In the past these parasites at least had the common sense to try covering up their devious ways but not anymore.
Do the voters realize or even care that we are in the midst of a bloodless coup? Those that hold a different opinion might stop fooling themselves and veiw this president for the threat he really is.