Health Care Bill Passes House, Moves On To Senate

Late last night the U.S. House passed a comprehensive health care reform bill that was so broad and complex that it was 1,500+ pages long. The amount of bureaucracy involved in this bill is so massive that it is no wonder why the bill is so large, but the size of the bill is just a symbol of the massive expansion in government that will occur if this health care bill passes the Senate. The real test for the bill is going to be the Senate, because there are more ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats who have their head on straight in the Senate then there is in the House. It was a close vote in the House, 220-215, but it will be an even closer vote in the Senate.

There are two problem prevalent here. The first is that the bill is so large it makes you wonder how many Congressmen and women can honestly say they read the bill. We have congressional leaders, a Democratically controlled House that is willing to pass bills without reading them. These pieces of legislation have a huge impact on our country, and our nation’s future, and it will affect every single American citizen and our leaders on Capitol Hill are not even reading the bills they are passing. I am sure the minds behind the health care bill were well aware that not very many of the representatives were going to read it, and it was this ‘too big to fail’ mentality. Nancy Pelosi was ecstatic yesterday, because in the end she got her way regardless of what is best for the American people. The radical left in Washington are doing things their own way and are not looking after the needs of the taxpayer.

The second problem is that the majority of Americans’ chief concern is not health care. Health care is not at the bottom of the list of concerns, but it is not at the top. The people of this country are discontent over the state of the economy. They want solutions to the rising unemployment rate that Democrats promised would go down when the stimulus package was passed earlier this year. They assured Americans that millions of jobs would be saved or created every month, and instead of that happening the amount of jobs saved and/or created was no where near what they promised, and millions of people have lost their jobs. The stimulus package did nothing to resurrect the declining job market. The only thing the stimulus package has accomplished is adding more to our national deficit and debt, and the American people see this and they are angry.

Both Republicans and Democrats produce polls showing the majority of Americans either support or don’t support a public option plan, Rasmussen comes out with a poll that shows the majority of American people do not agree with the Democrats’ position on health care at the same time a Washington Post/ABC poll shows the majority of Americans want a public option. I am more inclined to trust Rasmussen over WaPo, because the Post has always had its own agenda, and is the biggest example of yellow journalism in the country. However, I would be willing to bet that regardless of the fact that the majority of Americans don’t support a public option plan most Americans are tired of the health care reform debate, because congressional Democrats are not focused on the needs and concerns of the American people.

The American people are frustrated, and are tired of being ignored. That is why Democrats lost big on Tuesday, and that is why the Republican comeback is starting now. Republicans addressed the needs of the American people more than Democratic leaders have, and constituents all over the United States are starting to see that we were better off with Republican leadership, but more so than that we would be better of with economically conservative leaders. The majority of the people in this country want limited government and responsible spending, not the excess spending going on in Washington that does nothing to benefit taxpayers.