DemCare - The Buy-Off

DemCare in Summary - Townhall

DUM DUM DUM … DEMCARE
Snow shut down most of DC this past weekend, but it didn’t stop Senators from passing another cloture motion on the health care bill that is widely expected to seal the deal on Senate passage of Obamacare. The bill will still be subject to two more cloture votes, which should be smooth sailing for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The tricky bit will come after Christmas, when the Senate bill is merged with the House bill and shoveled through by House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The number of kickbacks Reid has inserted into the bill to buy Senators’ votes is seemingly endless. Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” along with additional perks for Vermont and Massachusetts, will cost the rest of us an estimated $1.2 billion over the next 10 years. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., also shoved an extra $100 million for health care research in his state, and Senators Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Carl Levin, D-Mich., got insurers off the hook for taxes in their states. Meanwhile, Senators from Pennsylvania, New York and Florida were allowed to carve out specific protections from Medicare cuts for their respective states.

The biggest components of the legislation are still basically the same: mandating the purchase of health insurance (translating into a tax for many people); subsidies for low-income Americans; cuts in Medicare funding; and extreme government regulation. Public funding of abortion is also currently included in the bill.
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