Health Care Vote Today In The House

Today is crazy day in the House. They plan to vote on the Health Care Bill. The Hill blog has a list of those Democrats leaning one way or another (Obviously the Republicans are all against).

Pelosi is allowing pro-life Democrats to add an amendment (which will be voted upon) to make sure the Health Care Bill will not fund abortion. God bless these Democrats. Thank you for standing up for life. Pelosi, who is staunch pro-abortion, is only allowing this because she knows she cannot pass this unless she does. The pro-life Democrats may be for universal health care, but they see a disconnect between wanting health care for all, and allowing the willful destruction of life in the same bill. For that I will always have the deepest respect for them.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is the leader of the pack on this and don't think he has had it easy. The liberals Democrats have slammed him six ways to Sunday on this.

If the up or down vote is approved to block funding of abortion, the liberal Democrats will howl. If it isn't, you can rest assured that the forty something pro-life Democrats won't vote yes on the health care bill. Like I said...crazy day.

Doesn't it always come down to abortion? Yes. Because it is the horror of society and it's time we dealt with it. 9 men in black robes brought this on us with a case that was based on a lie (Norma McCorvey ( Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade) was told by her lawyers to say she was raped. She wasn't. She is pro life now btw). We, the people, never got to debate, vote on it, or look at the implications of it. And until we do, this issue will continue to be the wound that never heals.

Pres. Obama is meeting with the Democrats to show some political muscle to get this 10-year, $1.2 trillion legislation passed.

The other contentious issue is allowing illegal immigrants to be covered. You all remember Congressman Wilson's "You Lie" to Pres. Obama during his speech where Obama insisted that illegals would not be covered.

Well, it looks like he did indeed lie:

House leaders said that, in keeping with the Hispanic Caucus' demands, there was not likely to be any prohibition added to the House bill against illegal immigrants shopping in the exchange.

Or...maybe Obama won't sign it if that is in there, since he promised he wouldn't?

Ok, you can stop laughing now. Of course he will sign it.

All this backdoor game playing goes against what the Democrats and Pres. Obama promised with transparency. They promised to publish the final bill publicly 72 hours before the vote. Another lie.

Right now they are all about verbal fighting and bloviating. Watch it live on C-span.

I'll try to keep you updated, but my son's football team are in the playoffs and I've got a game to go to this afternoon. So, if nothing else, I'll wrap things up tonight.

Update(via NRO): Boehner, Cantor and Pence will all be voting YES on the Stupak amendment, and are putting the word out to members about it.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also supports the amendment.

Update II: Here is a list of the undecided Democrats. It's basically in their hands whether this passes or not.

I really would be shocked if this didn't pass. Pelosi knows that whatever agreements she makes with moderate Democrats can be changed in conference or at the Senate or, if necessary, at the Supreme Court level. She is just giving moderate Democrats an out with their constitutes. She knows all she needs is the Democrats. I can't think of a more partisan bill that has ever been passed in the House. This will be on the shoulder's of the Democrats.

As of 1pm central time, there will be fours hours of debate on the floor.

But the probability is that we take the fight to the Senate.

Update Sunday morning: As I thought, the house bill passed 220-215, with one Republican who had told the GOP that if they took out the abortion funding that he would probably vote for it.

I, personally, have some mixed feelings. On the one hand I'm not happy that it passed of course, and it helps to know that this bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. The final bill in the Senate will look nothing like this bill. So there is comfort in that. If it passes, it will be a much more conservative bill. On the other hand my core issue won. Life won here. We have finally gotten to the point where our leaders, on both sides, have started to realize that the destruction of an unborn child is not acceptable. Maybe Americans have come to accept the legality of this horror, but they will not accept anything else about it. They will not accept that it is "health issue." It really gives me great hope that so many Democrats were willing to put their careers on the line and go against their party and their President to take a stand for life.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I actually feel some hope for my father's party.

So for everyone that was sick of this healthcare debate, it really is only just beginning.

Update: There is something that needs to be acknowledged here that will be overlooked in the coverage of this. Republicans COULD have voted "present" on the Stupak amendment barring federal funding of abortion in the bill. If they had done that, this amendment would NOT have passed and then this bill would not have passed. That would have been the POLITICAL thing to do. And don't think ALOT of Republicans aren't ticked off at this. But the Republican leadership explained this morning:

"We believe in the sanctity of life, and the Stupak-Pitts Amendment addresses a moral issue of the utmost concern. It will limit abortion in the United States. Because of this, while we strongly and deeply oppose the underlying bill, we decided to stand with Life and support Stupak-Pitts.

"The danger of this bill passing without critical pro-life language was too great a risk to do otherwise. Indeed, a number of Democrat supporters of Stupak-Pitts had privately indicated to many of our colleagues that all they needed for "cover" was a vote, and they would support final passage even if the amendment failed.

"To be clear, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment's passage is the right thing to do. We believe you just don't play politics with life.

In other words, they didn't give up their principles to win like Pelosi did. And this is why I stay Republican.

Many in the GOP will say we could have killed the bill otherwise. But that would have just been delaying the inevitable. We always knew that Pelosi would do whatever it took to get this passed, even giving up her own beliefs to do so. This fight was always going to be in the Senate.

Our leaders stood on principle instead of politics. We go to the fight in the Senate with that virtue carrying us on.....