The U.S. House of Representatives officially put our country on the fast track to nationalized health care last night, passing the Senate health care bill by a vote of 219-212.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, who has fought this legislation tooth-and-nail, gave an impassioned speech on the House floor right before the vote. Here are some excerpts:
Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, I rise tonight with a sad and heavy heart. Today, we should be standing together, reflecting on a year of bipartisanship, and working to answer our country’s call and their challenge to address the rising costs of health insurance in our country. Today, this body, this institution, enshrined in the first article of the Constitution by our Founding Fathers as a sign of the importance they placed on this House, should be looking with pride on this legislation and our work. But it is not so. No, today we’re standing here looking at a health care bill that no one in this body believes is satisfactory. Today we stand here amidst the wreckage of what was once the respect and honor that this House was held in by our fellow citizens. And we all know why it is so. We have failed to listen to America. And we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents. And when we fail to reflect that will – we fail ourselves and we fail our country. Look at this bill. Ask yourself: do you really believe that if you like the health plan that you have, that you can keep it? No, you can’t. In this economy, with this unemployment, with our desperate need for jobs and economic growth, is this really the time to raise taxes, to create bureaucracies, and burden every job creator in our land? The answer is no. Can you go home and tell your senior citizens that these cuts in Medicare will not limit their access to doctors or further weaken the program instead of strengthening it? No, you cannot. Can you go home and tell your constituents with confidence that this bill respects the sanctity of all human life, and that it won’t allow for taxpayer funding of abortion for the first time in 30 years? No, you cannot. And look at how this bill was written.
Can you say it was done openly, with transparency and accountability? Without backroom deals, and struck behind closed doors, hidden from the people? Hell no, you can’t! Have you read the bill? Have you read the reconciliation bill? Have you read the manager’s amendment? Hell no, you haven’t!
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This sort of device would be implanted in the majority of people who opt to become covered by the public health care option. With the reform of the private insurance companies, who charge outrageous rates, many people will switch their coverage to a more affordable insurance plan. This means the number of people who choose the public option will increase. This also means the number of people chipped will be plentiful as well. The adults who choose to have a chip implanted are the lucky (yes, lucky) ones in this case. Children who are "born in the United States who at the time of birth is not otherwise covered under acceptable coverage" will be qualified and placed into the CHIP or Children's Health Insurance Program (what a convenient name). With a name like CHIP it would seem consistent to have the chip implanted into a child. Children conceived by parents who are already covered under the public option will more than likely be implanted with a chip by the consent of the parent. Eventually everyone will be implanted with a chip. And with the price and coverage of the public option being so competitive with the private companies, the private company may not survive.
ObamaCare‘s actual beneficiaries are politicians, government bureaucrats, insurance companies, drug manufacturers, etc.—but that’s another blog post for another time.
The law’s supposed beneficiaries are the uninsured. Yet 61 percent of them think the law will either not help them or will hurt them (see pie chart below). The main takeaway: Congress can repeal ObamaCare and its supposed beneficiaries won’t even care.
CLIVE
Posted on August 11, 2011 at 3:23pm
if a mexican breaks his arm and goes to an emergency room, they fix his arm, and he doesn’t pay for it… and its pretty much always been this way. what i’m saying is… we’ve been paying for their healthcare for a long time.
The “good news” is that the Democrats are going to implement near-universal care by mandating that people buy private insurance or face fines. With a public option, such a mandate is dubious. Without a public option, such a mandate is downright cruel. If the government wants to provide people with a cheaper alternative to private insurance in order to help working class Americans, I’m all for it. But where the fuck does this administration and this Congress get off telling me I have to purchase insurance? I can’t possibly see how that’s constitutional. While the health insurance mandate has been compared to auto insurance mandates, this is an inappropriate comparison. Drivers must buy auto insurance by virtue of having bought cars. Under the health care bill mandate, people would have to buy health insurance by virtue of simply being alive. Not even the broadest interpretation of the Necessary-and-Proper Clause arrives at a justification for mandating business transactions between private parties under such a circumstance. Of course, we’d like to think that if such a law passes, there would be a benefit in having a constructionist majority on the Supreme Court if the mandate were ever challenged and got that far. But the Roberts Court has shown itself to be so rabidly pro-business, I would not put it past the robed reactionaries to rule in favor of the mandate simply because it helps corporations.
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