ObamaKennedyDeathCare Friday Update

You are doing your job!  The phone lines at the Senate have officially melted.  I got through this morning, but have been unable to do so since.  I'm going to keep trying, and I hope you do, too.  RedState is reporting that you can use this link to try to get around the normal switchboard.  Your other option is to find the numbers for each Senator's local office - they keep a tally of these things, too, and they regularly update the Washington office with their numbers.

From what I've seen, the best things to mention to your Senators include:
1. vote NO on Saturday because it's too expensive, especially given the tough economic times we've got right now
2. vote NO on Saturday because 97% of bills that are introduced eventually get passed into law, so a vote for the motion to introduce Saturday night equals a vote for the bill

Feel free to mention any of the other negatives I've posted on, too - there are plenty to choose from!  Things like the budgetary trickery of waiting four more years before starting to count the cost, raising bunches of taxes, forcing people to buy insurance or risk fines and jail time, the monthly funding of abortions, and so on are all very important issues, too.  Pick whichever things make you the angriest, and go to town.  If you can't get through on the phone, send an e-mail (here).  Or, of you'd prefer, you can reference these four key facts:

1. According to the CBO, only 1 percent of the bill's costs would kick in prior to the fifth year of its alleged "first ten years" (2010 to 2019). Starting in 2014, 99 percent of the bill's costs would hit -- meaning that the bill's true first 10 years are from 2014 to 2023. Before then, it wouldn't really take effect.

2. In the bills' real first decade (2014-23), it would cost $1.8 trillion, raise Americans' taxes by $892 billion, and siphon $802 billion out of already barely-solvent Medicare to spend elsewhere -- according to CBO projections.

3. According to CBO projections, in the bill's real first decade (2014-23), it would do one of two things: It would either cut doctors' pay under Medicare by $431 billion (as it claims it would but as nobody believes it would), or it would raise United States deficits by $286 billion

4. So, if the bill doesn't follow through on its pledge to cut doctors' pay by a drastic 23 percent under Medicare and never raise it back up, it would violate President Obama's very public and very emphatic pledge in his Sept. 9 speech to the joint-session of Congress that he would "not sign" any bill that "adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period." This bill would raise deficits by $2.86 trillion dimes. Read my lips, what?

Here are a couple more details for you.  One of the most vulnerable Dem Senators for 2010 is Mary Landrieu of Louisiana; voting for a government takeover of healthcare will just about kill her re-election hopes.  She needs to bring home some serious bacon to make the home folks happy, so Harry Reid bought her vote for $100 million.  No, I'm not joking.  Michelle Malkin lists some others on the outright bribe list:

- CALIFORNIA: $300 million
- AARP
    $18 million in stimulus money
    The Medigap royalty/kickback scheme
- THE ABORTION LOBBY, via LifeNews
- BIG LABOR, via Houston Chronicle, Goodies for labor tucked away in health bill
    and via Mark Mix

It's nice how government works, huh?

So how important and critical is this bill to the Dems?  They've been chanting that it's the most urgent crisis since...well, since the stimulus was needed earlier this year, but forget about that.  It's now the most urgent crisis on the national radar!  In fact, it's so important and critical that immediately after Harry Reid forces the vote on this 2,000+ page bill that none of them have read, they're going to go home for Thanksgiving.  Yep, it's time for a vacation after that vote on the bill they didn't read.

More to come tonight.  The primary thing right now is to keep up the pressure on your Senators.  If you have a few extra minutes, you might also call Blanche Lincoln, who appears the be the last best bet to prevent Reid from getting his 60 votes.  Keep calling after hours, too - they'll take messages, at least until the inboxes fill up.  Then go for the local offices, then go for the e-mail.  The point is to overwhelm them with such a flood of opposition that they fear the American people's retribution more than the Democrat leadership.

Keep it up - this fight is for the future of America!

There's my two cents.


Additional Links:
Federal micromanagement of health insurance
Federally designed health exchanges with a government run plan
True cost: $4.9 trillion
Even Gallup is now showing Obama at below 50% approval