Believe it or not, there are some very good things about last night's House passage of HR3962 also known as The Affordable Health Care For America Act. Even though the bill contains nothing more than the tax and spend, big government, corruption inducing, special interest serving, bureaucratic liberal foolishness that the American people have time and again rejected; its passage by a razor-thin 220-218 margin establishes that:

Continued...

1. It will never become law. If you remember your High School Civics Class, you know that the next step is for the United States Senate to pass it's own version of a health care reform bill and while the Democrats had just enough of a majority in the House to ram theirs through, that is not true in the Senate. The current breakdown in the Senate is 58 Democrats, 41 Republicans and 2 Independents who usually vote with the Democrats. But one of those Independents, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) has already announced he will vote with the Republicans if the bill contains the so-called "public option" (it does) denying the Democrats the 60 vote majority they need to block a Republican filibuster. As Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said this morning on CBS's Face The Nation, "The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate."

2. It will fuel the fire of discontent in America. Those who were made to feel uncomfortable by the tea party protests and vocal dissent at Town Hall meetings last summer haven't seen anything yet. Passage of a 1,990 page bill which was not read by a single person that voted for it will not sit well with those of us who believe that it is the content of legislation, not which political party proposes it, that should determine whether or not one votes for or against it. Chants of "Read The Bill" and "Kill The Bill" are not just catchy little slogans. They are reminders of the United States Constitution and how it was designed to work. Unfortunately it is those currently in power who desperately need that reminder.

3. Should some watered down version of HR3962 manage to get passed by the Senate, President Obama will sign it and he will own it. He will not be able to blame its quick and inevitable failure on anyone else (including former President Bush). Have any doubts that government-run health care is doomed to fail? Just take a look at the recent government-run failure that is the H1N1 vaccination program. Swine flu vaccine has been in short supply nationwide because of manufacturing delays, resulting in long lines at clinics and patients being turned away at doctors' offices. Meanwhile some of New York's biggest companies, including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, have received doses of swine flu vaccine for its employees, drawing criticism that the hard-to-find government funded and distributed vaccine is going first to the privileged. Ready for a government takeover of all health care now?

4. It shows the Democratic leadership for the liars that they are. During a press conference in September when asked if she would put the final version of the House health care reform bill online for at least 72 hours before a vote so that Americans could read the legislation, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) answered, "Absolutely. Without question." (source) The late Saturday night passage of HR3962 not only violated that promise, it had a thief-in-the-night feel to it as most Americans do not expect non-emergency legislation to be debated nor voted on over a weekend.

5. It will further hurt the Democrats' chances in the 2010 mid-term elections. Even after voters sent them a clear message in last week's New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections, House Democrats are still unwilling to listen. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Representative Mike Pence (R-Indiana) said voters are "tired of the borrowing, the spending, the bailouts, the takeovers. On a narrow partisan vote, the Democrats put their liberal, big government agenda ahead of the American people. If Democrats keep ignoring the American people, their party's going to be history in about a year." (source)

That would certainly be worth listening to Speaker Pelosi crowing for a few days over the passage of a bill that will never become law.