Government-Run Health Care Reform: Bookerista Views

The U.S. House of Representatives last night narrowly passed the health care bill by a vote of 220-215. It's unclear when the U.S. Senate will vote on a health care bill. If the Senate passes its bill, the House and Senate bills would have to be reconciled into one document and voted on again before President Barack Obama could sign it into law. Bookeristas weigh in on the bill's passage in the U.S. House of Representatives:

Michael Steele: "Pelosi Health Care Bill Passage"

The moderate-conservative chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a statement emailed to Booker Rising: "[Last night] with help from their liberal House allies, President Obama and [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi finally got what they have been creating behind closed doors these past months – a government-run health care experiment that will increase families’ health care costs, increase the deficit, increase taxes on small businesses and the middle class, and cut Medicare. As the elections in Virginia and New Jersey clearly showed, the American people oppose bigger government, more federal spending, and higher taxes. Broad, bipartisan opposition to this bill was on full display [yesterday] evening, and the Democrats who ultimately voted for Nancy Pelosi’s liberal health care plan will have to answer to their constituents."

He continues his commentary: “Nancy Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants made a lot of promises [last night] to get the votes they desperately needed. Make no mistake – the Democrat leadership’s assurances were based on political expediency, not principle. Anyone receiving a promise from Pelosi is guaranteed to be disappointed in the end when their votes are no longer needed. Americans want a common-sense bipartisan approach to health care reform, not President Obama’s and Nancy Pelosi’s costly, 1,990-page government-run experiment on our nation’s health care system. The House Republican solution to health care reform is the right direction for America, but Nancy Pelosi had no interest in bipartisanship, choosing instead to force her costly government-run experiment on the American people.”

Mr. Grey Ghost: "House Of Representatives Approves Health Care Reform Measure"

The conservative Democratic blogger in New York: "Sometimes I wonder if all this hoopla over healthcare reform is about benefiting Americans or just stamping Obama's legacy. From what I've read many of Barry supporters on the Left have no clue what's in either the House or Senate version of the bill (here's a good start for those not in the know), which further makes one wonder just how much of an 'urgent' need healthcare reform is in this day and age. And while I'm glad conservative Democrats argued for and got an anti-abortion amendment added to the House bill, frankly, I still don't see the urgency here. Regardless, no way Harry Reid has enough votes in the Senate to get this 'reform' on Barry's desk to sign anytime soon anyway."

Michelle D. Bernard: "Women Deserve Better Than U.S.-Run Health Care"

Asserts the conservative head of the Independent Women's Forum: "Democrats want to nationalize America’s health care system. The chief victims of such a policy would be women. Women, who make most health care decisions for their families, have the most at stake in preserving high-quality medical treatment centered on patient choice. U.S. health care is expensive and not everyone has health insurance. But America provides the best medical treatment in the world, offers patients the most options and generates the most advanced pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and health care treatments. Preserving these strengths is particularly important for women, who account for two-thirds of the dollars spent on health care and take more prescription drugs than men. The Democratic Congress would have us believe that a government takeover would improve the lot of women. Yet government-run health care routinely degrades quality and limits choice."

More: "Thus, government should reduce artificial roadblocks to a more competitive and efficient private health care system. Members of Congress who want to keep their jobs after next year’s midterm elections should take note: Market-based reforms — not big government — would yield both better medical care and more votes from women in the next election."

Tyrone: "Pelosi's Socialist Health Care Bill Passed The House"

The conservative Republican blogger in Maryland writes: "Nancy Pelosi 'likened the legislation to the passage of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years later'. Here's a funny fact about the liberals' most celebrated and worshiped social dependency programs. Those programs are all BROKE and have yet to work! Their programs are adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt and hurting America, yet these mental clowns actually believe that these programs are 'good for America'. I truly despise Nancy Pelosi. If the 48% of Americans that didn't vote for Obama wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of this terrible bill, I would say let the 52% suffer from their own ignorance."

He continues his commentary: "Unfortunately, that isn't going to be the case. If this bill isn't stopped in the Senate, people who exercise common sense are going to have to suffer right along side the clueless slap happy liberal drones. Anybody with a brain knows that the public option is nothing more then a poison pill to kill off private insurers thus leaving the government as the sole provider once the dust settles. In the House bill that nobody read 'it would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide federal subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford it'. In other words, the government will take away a person's freedom of choice and demand they obey what they say or else. Here's another scary provision of the bill the nobody read before it was voted on, 'Both consumers and companies would be slapped with penalties if they defied the government's mandates'. This is how the government is going to snuff out private insurers and become the only game in town."

Bob Parks: "The 'Or Else...' Party"

The conservative Republican blogger in Virginia writes: "It was almost comical, watching the Democrats argue against the Stupak Amendment, blasting the notion that women would lose their right to choose if taxpayers didn’t pick up the tab on abortions. For decades, the Democrats tried to come off as the party of 'choice', but that was all dashed to pieces with the Saturday night House passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962). I say 'dashed to pieces' because there is very little in the whole concept of government-run anything that involves choice. This is a bill that we will be forced to pay for now and won’t kick in until 2013, the year after the Obama Administration is reelected so the president won’t have to explain its shortcomings."

He continues his commentary: "This is a bill that will only be successful if it has no private sector competition, so it has mechanisms in place to squash competition to the point where people will have to get on the 'public option'. This is a bill that punishes citizens who choose not to enroll on the government plan, yet buys the votes of the youth who’ll get the privilege of living off their parents’ plan until their 27th birthday. While the Republicans were prodded into coming up with a ramped-down version of universal health care, yet were still called 'The Party of No', this is a bill that forces people to be insured (eventually by the government) and failure to do so can result in fines and/or imprisonment. In other words, we know better so do as we say 'or else'."

Torrey Spears: "Theatre Of The Absurd"

The conservative Republican blogger in Florida opines: "Of course, this Congress and this President know nothing about fiscal responsibility, and are perpetrating the most aggressive power grab possibly in the history of American politics, and so while it's disappointing this bill passed the House, it's not a surprise. Still, House Minority leader John Boehner is of the opinion that the abortion amendment that was so vital to getting the Blue Dogs on board will probably be nixed in the final bill that makes it to the President's desk, which I tend to agree with him seeing is [sic] that Pelosi and the far left are slaves to their ideology and their far left contingency [sic]...but the question now arrives - will the President, who in his 'major speech on healthcare' earlier this year, vowed to the American people that his healthcare reform bill would *NOT* provide funding for abortions, sign this bill into law if it indeed provides federal funding for abortions?"

He continues: "Now the focus switches to the Senate, where Harry Reid (who according to the latest poll in Nevada - a broken bottle is polling better than the Senator) will have a much more difficult time getting ReidCare through the Senate. America - you still have a chance to save this nation from what would amount to the largest tax increase in the history of the nation - one that will undoubtedly destroy our economy, will ruin the greatest quality of health care in the country, and allow the Federal Goverment an unprecedented intrusion into the personal lives of every American. Healthcare reform is essential... but not like this. Not like this."