Ugly Health Care Endgame: Special Today in Washington, D.C. - Mar 15, 2010 - Pushing Obamacare by Arm Twisting, Personal Deals & Help from Drug Lobbyists

The Senate reconvenes at 2 PM today and will take up the House message to accompany H.R. 2847, Democrats’ jobs bill. At 5:30 PM a cloture vote on the motion to concur with the House amendments to the bill is scheduled.

Over at the US House, the arms of our Representatives are being twisted in an effort to to pass the White House and Harry Reid's Obamacare. The Hill is covering and updating an article addressing the House Democrats' Whip Count. They note the House Democrats prior vote and present leaning. Call the Democrat Representatives and tell them to vote NO on this travesty. It is beyond belief that they would sellout for a bill that a majority of Americans do not want. While they have a House bill, they are now asked to skip all their efforts and to accept the Senate Bill and to hopes it gets changed later. Regardless of which side of the issues, liberal or conservative, pro-life or pro-choice, how can House members submit to the tyranny of being forced or bribed to approve a Senate bill which could not pass right now if voted on again.  They would be substituting the Senate version for the House version of the bill which was crafted closer to the people even though most Republicans were excluded from the process. As addressed below, when did the House Democrats become sheep and surrender itself to the pharmaceutical industry lobbyists and letting their former alleged "big bad wolves" help write a bill behind closed.

It appears that with Democrat leadership closing in on a vote in the House on the unpopular Senate health care reform bill, the end game is getting ugly, just as it did in December as the Senate vote approached. Recall that just before the final vote in December, a whole host of last-minute special deals for various states were inserted in the Senate bill which helped secure the votes needed for passage. Among those were the now-famous Cornhusker Kickback, the Gator-Aid, and special breaks for Vermont and Montana.

Now, as a vote in the House approaches, history appears to be repeating itself. Though President Obama had said last week that he wanted to strip out special deals Democrats made, ABC News reports today, “To retain votes in the Senate, the White House is now backing away from its ban on special deals for individual states which was a promise the president made after the ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ was revealed -- giving Nebraska extra Medicaid money to win Sen. Ben Nelson's vote.” According to the AP, Senate Democrats were unenthusiastic about removing the deals, and some senators balked openly.

Meanwhile, House members are apparently being offered “rewards” for a yes vote, including “election-year visits [from President Obama] to competitive congressional districts, where a presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds,” according to a Washington Post story last week. The New York Times was more explicit today, writing, “The White House has signaled to lawmakers that assistance for midterm elections — for example, presidential visits and fund-raisers — will be prioritized for those who support the bill.”

And once again, Democrats are talking about voting on a bill at the end of the week that no one has yet seen. Politico’s Live Pulse notes, “Democratic staffers worked feverishly through the weekend drafting a reconciliation bill that insiders said was still unfinished Sunday night.” Actually, it turns out some people know what’s in the bill, the drug industry lobbyists helping to write it: “The weekend included high drama for the drug industry as lobbyists huddled with Democratic staffers to work out a fee structure and donut-hole fix that wouldn’t bust the $90-billion commitment they made to pay for reform, industry sources said.”

So we have pharmaceutical industry lobbyists helping write a bill behind closed House Democrats are expected to vote on by the end of the week, the White House offering campaign assistance and fund raising help to House members who vote for the health care bill, and protection for the special deals used to secure Democrat votes in the Senate. How bad a bill is this that Democrats feel compelled to hide it behind closed doors and parliamentary tricks and the main way to secure votes seems to be offers of special deals and campaign assistance from the White House? This is not the kind of reform Americans are looking for.

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