Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
How do you go over a waterfall in a barrel?
Easy. You close your eyes, pray and hold on tight.
That's pretty much what Americans will have to do as the U.S. Senate today barrels recklessly and helplessly toward a 2,000-page overhaul of the nation's health-care system.
Few people know what's in the bill or what it would do -- other than use your money to pay for abortions and set up a new government health-care program that will likely, someday, become the single payer for health care in America.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had planned on demanding that the bill be read aloud -- which might have taken 30 hours, slowed down the process and educated senators and the electorate. But peer pressure made him relent: Seems senators want to get home after today's debate for the Thanksgiving recess.
The stakes could not be higher for the American people. In an effort to provide health insurance to less than 5 percent of the population, Congress and the president seem willing to turn one-sixth of the nation's economy on its head -- and, ominously, to stick the government's nose further into the people's health-care tent and burden us with intrusive regulations as-yet unseen.
Senate Democrats are trying to move mountains to get this done, too -- with a 10-hour debate today and an evening vote on whether to proceed with the bill after Thanksgiving. They desperately want to get it done before the end of the year; next year, being an election year, Americans will be paying closer attention and won't brook this kind of nonsense.
Plus, Democrats want to get it done and avoid a repeat of August's angry town halls.
The stakes are, therefore, sky high for congressional Democrats and President Obama as well. The thing is, they may be caught in a trap of their own making. Consider: If they fail to pass a health-care bill, they will be seen as having fumbled their opportunity; yet, even if they pass the Senate's 2,000-page version, the House's 1,900-page version -- or some dangerous new hybrid of the two -- the bill's hidden provisions will likely seep out for months next year, horrifying many unsuspecting voters and creating a tidal wave of buyer's remorse.
Americans are currently opposed to the Democrats' reform proposals -- with those who feel strongly about the plans opposing them nearly 40 to 25 percent. Just wait until we found out what's in them -- especially after the ultra-left Democratic congressional leaders put the final package together in the all-powerful House-Senate conference committee.
Already, business leaders, who have been cautiously supportive of reform, are balking.
"We're disappointed," Bruce Josten, an executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in the Wall Street Journal . "If it ends up in that form, I can't imagine the business community supporting it."
Meanwhile, the Catholic church is increasingly at odds with Democrats over abortion funding in the bill.
"The White House is on a collision course with Catholic bishops," writes the Associated Press, "in an intractable dispute over abortion that could blow up the fragile political coalition behind President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
"An official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Sen. Harry Reid's bill is the worst he's seen so far on the divisive issue.
"Ultimately, he will need the votes of Democratic senators who oppose abortion to get his bill through the Senate."
And wait until senior citizens find out that Democrats are financing reform partly on their backs -- with a nearly $500 billion cut to Medicare!
Guess what: They're already finding out. Democratic support among seniors is falling through the floor, with Democrats now trailing Republicans in a "generic" poll of seniors by 15 percent, after that group was split between the two parties in 2008.
Of Democratic leaders, Jay Cost writes at RealClearPolitics.com: "Have they simply gone mad?"
If so, close your eyes, pray and hold on tight.
