Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) debate health care reform; Dr. Jennifer Ashton and Bob Schieffer discuss mammography screening and health care reform. Plus; Bob Schieffer on the cost of security.
Health care: 2010 elections start here
by Mark Silva
With the Senate's 60-39 vote to proceed to debate, after Thanksgiving, on a health-care bill that the president is seeking by year's end, the debate of the 2010 midterm elections has been joined:
For the Democrats, in control of the White House and Congress, the congressional elections will be presented to the public as a question of fulfilling an agenda of progress and change and keeping "the party of no,'' the intransigent GOP, in check.
For the Republicans, the midterms will be presented as a chance to retake at least part of Congress from a government trying to take over more than health care, but also every aspect of life, with big-government, big-spending and taxation"socialization,'' a leading Republican senator calls it.
If President Barack Obama is unable to sign a health-care overhaul into law by the mid-term vote, the GOP will be painting a picture of a president unable to work his will with his own party in control. If there is health-care reform and more to present at the polls in 2010, the GOP will be cast by the people in power as an obstructionist, no-solution party.
We could hear it in the words of the Florida Democratic Party, where one of the signal Senate campaigns is playing out: A 2010 contest featuring a popular Republican governor, Charlie Crist, whose own party is challenging him for siding with President Barack Obama on the first of the White House's spending sprees, the economic stimulus, and where the Democratic Party has weighed in with this volley for the Crist-appointee, the interim Sen. George LeMieux, who was among the 39 Republicans voting to block the health care bill from debate last night.
"Instead of standing with his constituents, Sen. LeMieux has decided to stand with the Republican 'Party of NO," which is offering no real alternatives and no real solutions,'' the Democrats wrote in an overnight email to their forces in Florida. "Sen. LeMieux's unwillingness to even discuss the issue of health insurance in our country--which has been on the minds of Floridians for many years--shows that neither he nor Gov. Charlie Crist are interested in fixing our broken health insurance system and are only interested in seeing Democrats and President Obama fail.''
We could hear it in Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's response to the Senate vote, in which all the Republicans but the absent Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio voted against taking the health-care bill to debatejust as all the House's Republicans, except for Rep. Joseph Cao of New Orleans, voted against the House health bill.
"Make no mistake: this was not a free vote,'' Steele said. "A vote in favor of this procedural motion paves the way for the bill's final adoption, which would impose a government-run health care experiment on America that increases premiums, increases taxes, cuts Medicare and allows for taxpayer-funded abortions.
" President Obama, (Senate Majoirty Leader) Harry Reid and their liberal Senate allies will surely gloat and pat themselves on the back for winning tonight's vote in the dark of night during a rare Saturday session, while Americans were home with their families,'' Steele said. "But as they do, those moderate Democrats who voted for Harry Reid's bill will have to answer to their constituents."
That means November, 2010.
In Reid's own words to the Senate, we could hear the election tape rolling:
"It's clear by now that my Republican colleagues have no problem talking about health care in press conferences or television interviews or town halls,'' said Reid (D-Nev.) "Yet now that we have actual legislation to debate, to amend and to build onnow that we have words on paper and not just wild rumorswill they refuse to debate?
"After all, if we are not debatingif we refuse to let the Senate do its jobwhat are we doing here? If senators refuse to debate about a profound crisis affecting every single citizen, the nation must ask: in whose interest do you vote?...
"My Republican friends, there is nothing to fear in debate,'' Reid said. "Be not afraid of debate. It is our job, and it is exactly what the legislative process is all about: discussing, amending, improving. We Democrats stand ready to do what needs to be done. We welcome debate. We encourage it.''
And, in the words of Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who pushed this email out to his party's supporters overnight:
"No matter what the Democrats may try to tell you this is a bill that will increase taxes, cut Medicare and use fancy accounting tricks to hide its true cost. The American people deserve better and Senate Republicans and our supporters continue to be the only thing standing between Democrats and the socialization of the American health care system.
"We cannot allow Washington bureaucrats to take control of our health care system. ''
Or -- as he is really saying -- the mid-term elections.
Democrats At Odds Over Health Bill
Some moderates have threatened to scuttle legislation if their demands aren't met, while the more liberal members have warned their party leaders not to bend.
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