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The video shows the Democrats finally fessing up to the fact health care costs will go up under Obamacare.

In addition, today the Senate Parliamentarian ruled Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package.

This puts a crimp in the plan to use reconciliation as the Dems want to use it: by passing the Senate bill in the House and then sending it back to the Senate for changes to be sent back to the House for approval and then to Obama’s desk for signature.

The Parliamentarian’s office responded in answer to questions by Republican senators.

It’s as plain as the noses on their faces the best option right now is to tear up the existing faulty bill and start over again on an incremental basis to fix things everyone agrees needs fixing and stop trying to pass a comprehensive bill no one understands.

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While growing up on an Indian reservation in Old Town, Maine, throughout the fifties and sixties, it was not unusual to see a shiny, black car with State Troopers driving it pulling up to our house and the distinguished gentleman inside get out and come to our door.

Other kids would ask what was going on and we would just tell them the governor was there. No big deal. Everyone has the governor come to their house, right? And our congressmen always go to your houses too, right?

Well, that’s what I thought. No big deal. It happens all the time. Sometimes I’d put my ear down at the keyhole in one of the living room doors that were now closed and see if I could hear any of the conversation by the “grown-ups” in that room. If I heard it didn’t interest me enough to remember it now.

These visits occurred shortly after our island reservation was finally connected to the mainland by a one-lane bridge. This bridge saved many lives. I vaguely remember when it was being built and I have at least one memory of riding to the mainland by the ferry operated by one of our fellow tribesmen.

The bridge saved many lives because many lives were lost when Indians on our reservation would attempt to cross the river to the mainland in the spring or just after the ice started forming on the river in the winter. The ice was there but wasn’t thick enough to safely walk on it—yet it was too thick to just paddle a boat or canoe through it. If anyone from our community wanted to cross to the mainland to shop, conduct business or just see a movie, he or she had to take a chance on the ice giving out while crossing in each direction, until the ice all melted in the Spring or froze solid in the Winter.

I come from a family of very strong women. Most of them had to be strong because they were either widowed or unmarried and had to support the family, including grandchildren, nieces, nephews and great-nieces and nephews. They gained respect in the “white community” enough for people to know they were trustworthy and good people who were firm in their convictions.

Many members of my family were instrumental in seeing to it that they lobbied the state legislators and the governor until we were finally able to convince the Republican leaders in Maine that we should be able to purchase a bridge with our own money so our people would be safer. It was our money but we had to put our hand out to the state because we were still considered “paupers” by the state and didn’t get the right to vote until the 1950’s. We were good enough to serve in the armed forces and die for our country, but we were paupers to the state and entitled to no rights.

It was through this lobbying effort, made possible by years of building a relationship with the lawmakers, that our family became acquaintances with the political leaders in our state. That’s why we saw them at our home. If they were in the area they stopped by and chewed the fat over politics, I suppose.

As hard as that struggle was, I think the struggle for the very soul of America is even harder. Last year at this time it seemed as though God had removed His blessing entirely from this country. And who could blame Him? We’ve kicked Him out of every facet of our public lives since Madeline Murray O’Hare got the Lord’s Prayer out of schools. How many of you remember reciting the Lord’s Prayer just before the Pledge of Allegiance in public school? Fortunately I was in high school before the prayer became forbidden and I did miss it when it was taken from us.

Last year I felt as though this country was headed for disaster that could never be repaired. Then came the tea party in April and another one in July, followed by the town halls held all over this country in August and September, followed by more peaceful demonstrations by grassroots Americans who just wanted what is best for our country. Each of these events made me get a glimmer of hope, and when I saw Sen. Arlen Specter getting torn to bits verbally by some of his constituents in Pa. I began to realize I wasn’t in the minority of opinion in this country anymore. They didn’t harm anything but Specter’s feelings, or any other senator’s or congressperson’s. It was the words they didn’t like and tried to tamp down, but the people would not have it.

We had gone through TARP, Stimulus, the House passing Cap and Trade, and watching Congress rush every large spending bill through without taking the time to study the consequences, while spending trillions of our dollars. No one really knew what was in the bills unless it was the staff of the Congresspeople or Senators. Yet they voted to pass these huge spending bills because they were “crises” and as Rahm Emanuel said, “We can’t afford to waste a good crisis.”

Now they were screwing around with our health care and we finally had had enough.

Since August the Congress has known we want no part of the current health bills passed by the House or Senate. We all agree it would be good to reform some things in our health care system, but we do not want the federal government stepping in and making a huge bill that will never be able to be fixed. We want it done incrementally and studiously, so we know our money is being spent responsibly. Many things such as the “undercover patients” mentioned by doctor and Senator Tom Coburn at Thursday’s pow-wow with Democrats will cost little, if anything at all. Of course it will cost something because Congress will create a separate department along with a bureaucracy for that purpose. Reforming our tort laws will cost nothing but the plaintiff’s attorneys’ support to the Democrats in government. No money lost to the taxpayer.

The point is not to create a massive bureaucracy in Washington, but to create a good bill with the least amount of disruption to our lives and the least amount of funds to do it properly. Slim government instead of bloated government. Surely we cannot address every problem in our health care system in one huge bill. Even a blind man can see that. Go in “baby steps” as Obama calls it.

Now the Democrats have decided they will take six weeks, ostensibly for the Republicans to give them “new ideas” and work out a bipartisan health care bill, or the Democrats will go to reconciliation if they cannot get the required 60 votes to pass a bill in the Senate.

I saw a headline at Politco.com awhile ago that says Democrats are “feeling out the next step” for the health care bill. This bill has had more lives than Morris the Cat, and like a fire you think is out, keeps coming back to bite you in the butt. Just when you thought it was safe, they go at it again.

Thursday’s “summit” was nothing but a group of grouchy, majority Democrats, barely hiding their contempt (if at all) at the Republicans who were at last invited to sit at the same table with them and discuss their ideas on health care reform. You know, the ideas the Democrats have claimed they didn’t have. They had some good ideas and came ready to discuss the legislation. Naturally, if you are going to discuss something that is in writing you are going to take the text to the meeting to reference it while speaking. At least that’s what Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia thought. Obama put him straight, though, when he told Cantor he was bringing “props”. Cantor had actually marked pages to flip to so he could do his presentation, and when accused by Obama of bringing a prop for political purposes told Obama that he thought since they were discussing the Senate bill it was only appropriate to have said bill in their presence.

The Republicans brought their A team to the meeting, while the Democrats seemed as though they had decided to just go through the motions and didn’t bother to prepare to speak about the language. Instead, they seemed to have been in some sort of contest to see which one could come up with the saddest story about people who have to pay insurance premiums or who cannot afford insurance. The winner in this contest (at least in my mind) was the ridiculously off-topic statement by Rep. Louise Slaughter of NY, when she told of one of her constituents who was wearing her dead sister’s dentures because she couldn’t afford her own. I don’t know about anyone else, but dental health has nothing to do with health insurance policies. I have dental insurance which is separate from my health insurance. By her reasoning I guess we should get the government to pay for our life insurance, car insurance, homeowner’s insurance and renter’s insurance if you rent. It’s about as related to health care as dental insurance.

Try to go to an eye doctor to get a regular eye exam and try to pay for it with your Medicare. You can’t do it. I was at the eye doctor’s office in January to get my yearly diabetic exam (paid for by my health insurance after a $30 co-pay) and another lady came in to have her eyes examined and asked if Medicare would pay for it. When she was told no she just hauled out the check book and wrote a check, so I know for a fact it is not covered by Medicare. You can’t get an exam for your vision with health insurance either. For that you either use the eye care insurance and come back another day for the same exam, except they’ll refract your eyes, or you can pay the cost of the refraction separately and not fool with your eye care insurance if you do not wish to have the same eye exam twice in one week.

We hear Obama and the Democrats bemoan the fact that 30 million Americans (I guess they’re all legal citizens) do not have health insurance, but you never hear them mention the 280 million or so Americans who do have health care insurance, or can afford it but think they’re invincible so they don’t get it.

Why can’t we go back to the innocent days of my childhood when saying no meant no? Not now. Not ever. Pelosi, Reid and Obama do not recognize that word or the will of the people. Obama is willing to throw out his congressional majority for his legacy legislation, and Pelosi and Reid are gullible or power hungry enough to help him. Remember, his last words were something to the effect that they could pass the bill and if the people didn’t like it that’s why we have elections.

Ah, the days of my childhood….to be so innocent and trusting as I was then.

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As Barack Obama loves to tell us (and most Independents and right of center citizens are tired of hearing) he inherited a mess from President George W. Bush, who somehow managed to keep the Ship of State straight and the economy percolating for most of his eight years in office—despite a terror attack on New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.

As we all know from high school civics classes, the president proposes and the Congress disposes. This is not to say Bush didn’t waste taxpayer dollars while in office. The last two years of the Bush presidency were years controlled by a Democratic Congress. If Bush asked for additional war funding for our troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, he had to pay the price by allowing the pork-laden bills that were sent to him or he never would have gotten the funding needed for these two wars on the terrorists out to destroy our country and what it stands for.

Before that, the Republican Congresses spent a lot of pork and Bush signed that legislation, which is why the Democrats won the last two election cycles.

Obama claims he was not aware of the severity of the problems this nation faced until he took office. This despite the fact that Bush included Obama and McCain on any decisions he was making regarding the financial meltdown prior to the election, and consulted with Obama after he was elected.

Bush went so far as to say if Obama wanted Bush to be the one to pull the trigger on TARP monies he would do so and let everyone blame him instead of hamstringing the new president. Obama and McCain both voted for TARP when they were still campaigning and were still Senators.

Enter Obama at high noon on January 20, 2009, and he has been blaming Bush for everything that has gone wrong in this country ever since. Hardly a day goes by that he or one of his spokespeople doesn’t mention what a “mess” they “inherited” and weren’t prepared for it until they actually saw it.

He knew jobs were being lost by hundreds of thousands shortly after he took office, but instead of putting his priorities into finding ways for businesses to succeed and be able to keep or hire new people he decided to go for his pet social projects.

He took over two car companies, gave loans to large banks, passed a “stimulus” bill that was just a pork-laden bill that had no stimulating effect, pushed for universal health care for a year despite the rejection of the legislation as written, pushed for Cap and Trade to “reduce” carbon emissions, campaigned for two failed governorships and one failed senate seat, held secretive meetings in the White House with just the leadership of the Democratic Congress over health care, and generally never gave jobs a second thought.

He made it abundantly clear to Congressional Republicans that he “won” and their input wasn’t necessary for any programs he wanted to pass, so they could be bi-partisan and agree with him or he’d do it without them anyway. Republican input into the “bipartisanship” was not needed.

After a few illegal ballots and a court fight in Minnesota for a Senate seat, the Democrat (who was behind in the original count) was finally seated and good old Arlen Specter saw the writing on the wall and figured out he’d never get the Republican nomination for Senate from Pennsylvania so he jumped parties, giving Obama his 60 vote “filibuster-proof” Senate.

Now, everything would be clear sailing. No matter that the people back home raised Cain about the health care bill all of August, Nancy Pelosi was able to finagle her way into the right amount of votes to pass health care “reform” in the House, with two votes to spare.

Now it was up to Harry Reid to easily pass a bill through the Senate and go to conference with the House Democrats and get the bill to Obama’s desk in time for him to brag about its passage during the State of the Union address.

There was no logical reason for him to not have health care “reform” passed by the end of December, 2009. He had the numbers and with a bit of bribery by Harry Reid the necessary amount of senators required to break a filibuster was there and did his bidding.

Then came the Massachusetts Massacre in January and the Democrats lost their crucial sixtieth vote in the Senate, meaning health care would have to be worked over in private with Democratic leadership, Obama and Rahm Emmanuel to make it palatable to the Democrats in each of the two legislative Houses.

Suddenly, Obama got a brain storm and decided maybe he’d better at least give lip service to jobs and the creation of jobs.

Congress has passed a new debt ceiling increase of $1.9 trillion. This money will have to be borrowed and soon we won’t be able to make even the interest payments to China and other countries still giving us credit. Except for the fact our paper bills say “Legal Tender” the dollar is really worth nothing. Try to take a dollar bill to the bank and get a silver dollar for it. Or try to take a $5 bill to the bank and get gold for it. It is worth about 1.6 cents, the amount it takes to print the bill.

Instead of taking TARP money paid back by banks (if they were so desperate last year how can they pay the money back so soon?) and using it to retire the debt, the Administration wants to put it back into circulation and have another “stimulus” bill for jobs when the original TARP money was supposed to do that and still has about 2/3 of the funds still available.

The only entity hiring any significant amount of employees has been the federal government. No one is being treated equally in this country, as those making over $250,000 combined household income are to be taxed for everything you can imagine until they are at the poverty rate, waiting in line for their food stamps.

Work is not being rewarded, but earnings are being robbed. At least Robin Hood robbed from the rich to give to the poor, but Obama and his Congress are robbing from the middle and upper class to make everyone poor.

The one person who has had the most access to this president at this White House has been the president of the SEIU, the service employees union. That’s why the so-called Cadillac health plans had an exemption from taxes for several years built into the bills.

Until Obama and his band of Merry Men realize cutting taxes for all Americans and all businesses will actually increase jobs and bring in more revenue, since more people will be working and paying taxes, our unemployment rate will stay at least where it is now and probably climb higher. Housing prices will continue to drop like a rock (but your property taxes won’t) and new homes will not be built.

Presidents Kennedy and Reagan realized tax cuts would bring the economy around and raising taxes during a recession was a stupid idea. It worked both times. Real jobs were created and not some government “make work” jobs that were dead ends to nowhere.

Obama is singing a new tune in public now. Health care isn’t the big emergency it was (but he’s still trying to figure out how to get it passed by hook or by crook behind the scenes) and jobs are the number one priority of his Administration. That’s the outward appearance. Actions speak louder than words and, judging by his performance in his first year and his defiance after the Massachusetts Senatorial election, I wouldn’t bet the house on the fact he is actually hearing the people.

This is why we shouldn’t put community organizers in charge of the country. He’s never held a private sector job in his entire adult life and his political background is sketchy at best.

May God bless America in spite of her stupidity.

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When I read the following quote in this piece all I could think of was the children’s lullaby “Hush Little Baby”.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged in her weekly news conference that plenty of work remained if the House was to agree to changes to the Senate bill.

“We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in,” Pelosi said. “But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people.”

Hush, little Congress, don’t say a word. Nancy’s gonna buy you a health care bill. If that health care bill don’t pass, Nancy’s gonna find a health care gate. If that health care gate don’t open, Nancy’s gonna buy you a health care fence. If that health care fence is too high, Nancy’s gonna buy you a new pole vault. If that new pole vault don’t work, Nancy’s gonna get you a parachute.

Doesn’t rhyme, but that’s all I could think of when I read that quote.

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This is still breaking news, but Nancy Pelosi has said she lacks the 218 votes necessary to approve the Senate Health Care “Reform” bill as written so it could go directly to Obama.

What a difference one seat in the Senate makes.

The Democrats in Congress, Obama, and Health Care “Reform” purchased with bribes to certain senators has gone down to a crushing defeat unless the democrats are politically suicidal enough to try to ram this down our throats with reconciliation and a series of other bills to add back what they would have to take out for reconciliation.

Back to the drawing board and this time, allow the input of Republicans so we can have enforceable tort reform, no special deals with senators or corporations and no cutting of Medicare funds, to name a few.

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