Barack Obama plans to use reconciliation to force healthcare reform on an unwilling American people

  Barack Obama and the Democrats have not learned their lesson from the recent Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts elections. It should be painfully obvious–especially after the Massachusetts election– that the American people do not want this version of healthcare reform.

  Apparently the administration either hasn’t gotten the message, the don’t understand the message,  or they have gotten the message and they understand it but they just don’t care, because Barack Obama is going to unveil his healthcare reform bill and push it through with reconciliation against the will of the American people.

Those agreements are likely to be combined as a privileged budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple 51-vote majority to pass the 100-member Senate instead of the 60-vote supermajority that has become routine in the Senate and gives Republicans power to block the healthcare bill.

“I believe that’s the path we are going to take,” a senior congressional Democratic aide said.

  This news is disheartening to say the least; we have done all that we can to send a message to the president, we have done all we could to stop this bill but it might not have been enough. We may be on the verge of losing this battle at the very moment that we had thought we won.

  There is only one hope left if this is the path that the president has decided to take, and it probably isn’t much of a hope. We have to hope that Harry Reid, of all people, will remain true to his word and refuse to use reconciliation to pass this bill. If the president decides that this is the path to take, and the Democrat leadership agree, there is almost nothing we can do to stop it. We would have to convince nine Democrats to change their votes and I just don’t see that happening.

  If this is the path that the administration decides to take it could spell the end of the Democrat majority in both houses. That is the one bright side to this news.

   While the tax increases in this bill are scheduled to go into effect immediately, the healthcare “benefits” are not to be seen before 2012. This may give us an opportunity to repeal much of this legislation if we manage to take back the House and Senate in November; if the actual legislation is not in effect there may be time to repeal it, once it goes into effect it will never be repealed.

 While it is a longshot that Republicans take back both houses, passage of the healthcare reform bill against the will of the people by using such a backhanded means to accomplish it may just be enough to swing the congress back into control of the Republicans.

  This could be our only hope because it seems like the president is going to force us to accept this legislation whether we like it or not.