Senate passes healthcare takeover bill

By Thomas Lifson

As expected, the Senate passed its version of the healthcare takeover bill at 7:16 AM. Harry Reid, either joking, exhausted, or perhaps overcome with a brief moment of sensibility, initially voted "no" before voting "yes." Politico reports:

Clearly exhausted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly voted no before changing his vote to yes, which got a laugh in the chamber, especially from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

After the vote, Reid joked, "I spent a very restless night last night trying to figure out how I could show some bipartisanship and I think I was able to accomplish that for a few minutes."

Following the vote, the Democrat Senate leadership delivered statements for the television cameras but refused to take questions. Then, the senators rapidly headed for the airport, to travel home. Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, wildly unpopular and not running for re-election, didn't even bother to show up, so the final vote was 60 - 39.

The House and Senate bills differ substantially, so there are still obstacles ahead, although Pelosi and Reid have announced some trickery to bypass the usual process. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal reports:

Look for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to circumvent the traditional conference committee process by which the different versions of health care reform passed by each house will be reconciled. If so, it will be the latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory. [....]

Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi would love to come up with a way to bash heads in private and skip any public discussion that further reveals just how incoherent and unworkable both the bills are. Luckily, there is a subterfuge readily available that wouldn't require the House to swallow the Senate's bill unchanged but also ducks the traditional give-and-take of the conference committee.

The likely solution will be a "ping pong" process of back-and-forth private messages between private House and Senate sessions.

So much for transparency. The Democrats are behaving as if they have something to hide, because they do. This monstrosity is all about grabbing power for the federal government, and the deal which accomplishes it contains provisions that cannot withstand public scrutiny.

The Democrats show no sign of comprehending the revulsion they are engendering. They may understand it better the day after Election Day next November.