NEOAVATARA

c/o Steve Breen, Townhall.com

In the early morning hours of December 21st, Democrats in the Senate guaranteed their own political suicides.

Now that the Democrats have done what Democrats do, and bribe and cajole people to sign on to a useless bill in the name of political gain only, the question is what happens next.  Minority Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy to delay and deter the Democrats ultimately appears to be a failure.  No surprise there, with the 60 vote majority in existence.

But what next?  Here are my near and long term predictions:

1.  The political battle continues.

Just  because this passed the Senate does not mean the fight is over.  The compromise bill still needs to be worked out.  And Harry Reid has built such a weak bill, the Senate is unlikely to be able to pass anything much different from the Senate bill.  This means Nancy Pelosi will have to strong arm the bill through the House, and the House has to accept the degrading fact that they are powerless compared to the Senate…a tough pill to swallow for the House of Representatives.

Now this makes for interesting bedfellows.  Pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak apparently is already working with Republicans to kill the Senate language to abortion.  This will be an interesting balancing act.  Stupak’s coalition supposedly holds 20-40 House members.  With the loss of the public option, will progressives in the House also accept the very stringent Stupak amendment?  Remember, Nancy Pelosi can only afford to lose 2 net votes…talk about threading the eye of the needle.  Not to mention, some Pro-choice groups have already argued that the abortion compromise in the Senate and House are unconstitutional.

One last point:  it Harry Reid’s embarrassing bill better than Olympia Snowe’s trigger option?  I was against the public option trigger, but progressives have to wonder if that deal was better.  There would have been hope for their beloved public option, and they would have gotten several Republican votes to boot.

2.  More bribes are on the way; just ask Nebraska!

Why shouldn’t every Senator and Representative fight for special exemptions ala Nebraska.  Nebraska is now the only state exempt from the new Medicare costs over the next decade.  Massachusetts, Vermont, and Louisiana also got payoffs.  CBO scores the total cost of the bribes at $1.2 billion over 10 years.

I guess the bigger question is why aren’t others asking for similar payoffs?  Why didn’t Joe Lieberman fight for Connecticut?  How about Mary Landrieu for the besieged Louisiana?  Surely they deserve more.  What about Michigan, with the highest unemployment in the country?  Are they not deserving as well?  Any Blue Dog in the House and moderate in the Senate that does not haggle for more money now looks like they are betraying their own voters, are they not?

(And Sen. Nelson, enjoy your 30 pieces of silver…I don’t think Nebraskans are going to appreciate it much.)

3.  There are good things in this bill…but they are few and far between.

Yes, conservatives, there are some good things.  It will find a way to fund health care for 30 million people who now lack it (though about 25 million people will be left out; this is NOT universal).  Consumer protections were necessary; you now cannot lose your insurance after you pay for it.  It is good for those with pre-existing conditions.

But the bad far outweighs the good.

4. I now predict the Republican Revolution of 2010.

I was hesitant to predict this before.  I thought Democrats, at least the adults in the Party, would wake up and make a compromise bill that would get at least a couple of liberal Republicans to garner a ‘bipartisan’ victory.  But I guess there are no adults left in the Democrat party.

Liberals argue that this bill will be like Social Security and Medicare, and will become more popular as time goes on.  I have serious doubts.  In the short term, this bill will either vastly increase taxes on everyone, or the rich, depending on which tax is used to fund the bill.  Neither is popular.  And those taxes begin immediately, while benefits from the program won’t really start until the next Presidential election.  So get taxed for the next three years, and get nothing for it; what a bargain!

What liberals in their usual deluded way fail to understand is that this is unlike Social Security and Medicare in one big way:  both of those bills had majority support when they were passed.  This health care bill has public opposition pushing 60%.  Almost all Republicans and a supermajority of Independents oppose this bill.  And as people learn how much the Democrats paid off the insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical industries to go along with this bill, and how much money it is going to make for those industries (ala Wall Street), people will get angrier, in the same way the stimulus is now hated.  And they will get even angrier when they learn that the doctors, the one group people trust, will get huge cuts in their reimbursements, which likely will push many to refuse Medicare insurance.

The public will get angrier and angrier about this bill as time goes by.  Oh, sure, if a decade from now health care is in better shape (highly unlikely) then Democrats will get historical credit.  But I don’t believe that this bill will result in much good, and either does the public.  For Democrats to say it is a failure in communication clearly insults the citizens of this country.  Americans understand largely what is in this bill, and they don’t like it.

I now feel, assuming Republicans and Conservatives unite to a common purpose, that Republicans will take the House of Representatives next year.  Yes, I know it is quite a prediction, and I know it is a hard slog.  But I have long said that the one thing that would give Republicans a chance is if Democrats push through a bad health care bill…and they have done exactly that.

I don’t think Republicans will retake the Senate.  But I would not be surprised if we gain 7 seats or so…bringing the chamber to virtual parity.  A 47-52 majority (with Lieberman remaining independent) will basically give whomever controls the House the power.

If the Republican Party ever had a moment to turn its virtues around, it is now.  The time to make a stand is when the future looks darkest.  Will our conservative leaders have the intelligence and fortitude to do what is necessary now?  Time will tell, but I sure hope so.