Update:There is still a small chance that Republicans could muster a filibuster during the debate. If a filibuster is imminent, then a second and final 'cloture' vote will be done to end the filibuster. At that point immediately in the days following, the vote on the bill will take place. If there is no filibuster, a vote could take place at any time the majority party feels they have all the votes needed for it to pass. Either way, a vote must take place on the bill after 30 hours of debate.
Late Saturday night, the United States Senate passed an important health care measure to "move the debate forward" and to begin the debate on the health care bill as we can see from the video below. With a not so surprising vote of 60-39 Democrats were able to shift the debate to the senate floor and being debating one of the most critical pieces of legislation in recent history. Or did they?
The Senate did not vote on the actually health care bill itself as the media and Senators would lead you to believe. They were actually voting on the process of 'cloture' for HR 3590. HR 3590 is a house bill; recently passed in the house; listed as the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009." A bill intended to give service members a substantial tax credit when buying a home. Now some of you are thinking, "then why did the Senators and media keep saying that this was the health care bill?" It's quite simple really. The health care bill has been added as an amendment to HR 3590. The actual legislation though behind HR 3950 has nothing to do with health care at all as we just mentioned here for you. The health care bill was merely an amendment added in a couple of days ago.
Why would the Senate and Media be so deceptive? It’s an answer that many don’t want to hear. The truth of the matter is, Senators know there is no other way for health care reform to pass on its own. Even the library of congress states that HR 3590 is being used as a vehicle for the health care reform bill. What that means in layman terms is that the debate won't actually be over health care reform itself, but over the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009" instead. This is a tactic that is used to push through critical legislation without it actually ever having to be fully voted on, distracting the members of congress with a different primary bill. Also this is a big political move that is used to force the opposition into a fox hole. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type scenario.
If a Senator ends up voting against HR 3590, it won't be considered that they are voting against health care reform. Since HR 3590 is actually the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act," then those Senators who vote against the bill will be accused of voting against the troops. The same tactic will be used once this bill passes the senate and it goes back to a joint committee with the house and senate both voting upon the bill. This is a cheap tactic used for strict political gain and often can make or break a candidate’s chances for reelection. The most recent example of this was when the House & Senate both passed the Military Spending Bill earlier this year and attached the "Matthew Shepard Act," an amendment to the spending bill that extended hate crimes protections to sexual orientation and gender identity. This was a bill that would have never passed by itself, but easily passed as part of the Spending Bill for the troops. After all, who's going to be the guy to vote against our men and women in uniform? A very dirty tactic to pass legislation indeed and lacks the appropriate transparency that the American people demand. Either way though, it’s a very powerful and successful political move.
Another thing because of tonight's vote on bill HR 3590 by the process of cloture, is very little debating or amending to the bill can take place. Under the rules of cloture as you can read here on the senate website, no amendments may be added or brought up that were not brought up prior to the vote for cloture. In essence unless a Senator had already proposed an amendment to HR 3590 prior to the vote for cloture that took place Saturday night, then no other amendments may be proposed or adopted into this bill. Where this is important now, is unless someone already proposed an amendment for HR 3590 to remove abortion from the bill, then abortions would be included under the Senate's current plan.
Also under the rules of cloture minimal debate is left to be done on this bill. Instead of "starting the debate" as many would leave you to believe, this actually restricts the debate down to only 30 total hours plus procedural time. On top of that each Senator is only allowed one hour to please his or her case for their constituents. Now with 100 Senators, that means that some would not get to speak at all right? Not completely true, though close. In the event that all 100 Senators would want to speak, then only 30 would get to use the allotted one hour time slot, while everyone else would only be granted 10 minutes to keep in with the rules of cloture. How in the world is that starting the debate at all as the elite media and Senators would lead you to believe? Fact of the matter is, it isn't.
There's a dirty little trick being pulled in Washington right now and it's not only by the Democrats, but by the Republicans as well. They take advantage of how naive the American people are in their understanding of the process and how we won't really understand what they're trying to do. The fact of the matter is though, is there will always be those of us who do understand exactly what they are trying to do and will be right here to call them out on it. The American people are being deceived. This isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue at all. If the Republicans were honest they would have come out tonight and told the American people what was happening, but they didn't. They played the same cat & mouse game just debating the health care reform part of the bill as usual.
The debate is indeed moving forward as the Senators voted to happen tonight, but not in the way they're saying. Don't be fooled and always pay attention to what's really going on. Maybe if they can eventually get caught in the act, then real change can occur. For now it looks like health care reform will pass in the form of HR 3590. A bill that has nothing to do with health care reform, yet finds reform happening anyway by being the vehicle it needs to trail through the road of landmines. We've lost honesty in this great nation, and it's truly a sad day once again.
