President Obama would be surprised to learn that Senate Democrats have paved the way to repeal Obamacare.  Republicans and conservatives have been planning ways to repeal Obamacare and were facing an up hill battle.  However, Senator Reid (D-Nevada) unwittingly gave a gift to those wishing to repeal Obamacare earlier this week.

Senator Reid invoked the so called nuclear option this week to block a vote on the Obama jobs bill, the American Jobs Act.  By using the nuclear option to block a vote on the Obama jobs bill, Senator Reid blindly handed opponents of Obamacare a clear path to repeal Obamacare.

Assuming that Republicans take control of the Senate and the White House in 2012, they would have to overcome a Democrat filibuster in order to repeal Obamacare.  However, with Reid’s actions, a Republican controlled House, Senate, and White House could easily repeal Obamacare with a simple majority vote.

With President Obama falling in the polls, high unemployment, and Senate Democrats defending twice as many seats as Republicans, Republicans have a good shot at taking the Senate and White House in 2012.  If that happens, Republicans will almost certainly repeal Obamacare which remains unpopular in polls.

If Republicans are able to repeal Obamacare following the 2012 elections, former President Obama and Democrats will have Senator Reid to thank.

Recently Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) proclaimed that the House Repealing ObamaCare is unconstitutional.  She claimed that repealing Obamacare would violate the 5th and 14th amendments to the Constitution.

The 5th amendment to the constitution says that ”No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice but in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”.

Rep. Lee claims that repealing Obamacare would deprive someone of their life or liberty.  Lee proclaims that ”I rise in opposition because it is important that we preserve lives and we recognize that 40 million-plus are uninsured.”  Lee seems to believe that because the Constitution prevents the government from depriving somebody of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, repealing Obamacare  is in violation of the Constitution.

Rep. Lee seems to lack the basic understanding that the Constitution doesn’t provide for our rights, but prohibits the government from taking our rights away.  In Rep. Lee’s view, the government provides and sustains our rights and any attempt to stop the government from providing or facilitating a service would be unconstitutional.

Another hilarious example of Congress’ lack of understanding of the Constitution comes from Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) attempt to justifiy Obamacare by  saying “Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness,”.  Rep. Lewis seems to be ignorant of the fact that the “pursuit of happiness” phrase comes from the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution.

Americans should be alarmed at the lack of basic understanding of our founding documents demonstrated by members of Congress.  All members of Congress swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.   How can they take this oath without understanding the document or in some cases, not even know the contents of it?

Perhaps we should at least make are representatives memorize the 1oth ammendment which states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  At least then, we could expect them to at least do nothing as they would be unsure what powers the government is granted.

AARP sent an email to its employees stating that premiums would increase between 8 and 13 percent.  AARP also added to avoid a 40% tax imposed by Obamacare on high-cost Cadillac insurance plans, employees would see an increase in co-pays and deductibles.  Adding costs to the employee helps avoid the additional Obamacare tax.

According to an AP article by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar,  “Although the tax on so-called “Cadillac” health care plans doesn’t take effect for years, employers are already beginning to assess their potential exposure because it is hefty: at 40 percent of the value above $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for a family plan. The tax is intended as a savings measure, to prod employers and workers into more cost-efficient plans.”

I irony and justice in this is that the AARP pushed for and endorsed the passage of Obamacare which included the Cadillac Insurance Tax that is pushing up AARP employee’s health care costs.

The interesting thing here is that Obamacare was supposed to lower our health insurance costs.  To help pay for Obamacare, the government impossed the Cadillac Insurance plan tax.  With employers passing on the cost of that tax to employees, not only will the costs to employees go up, but the government will fall short on paying for the massive cost of Obamacare.  Heck of a job federal government.

According to a post by Michelle Malkin, we can probably expect to see AARP request a waiver to the Obamacare plan that AARP helped jam down our throats.  The question is, where do we get our waivers from Obamacare?

The latest Obamacare support polls show 58% of Americans against with 37% in favor.  As Americans begin to understand how “unintended consequences” of Obamacare will impact all American families, support will continue to fall.

The healthcare reform bill extended the power of the Federal Government to determine how healthcare insurance companies are run.  Obamacare implemented a mandate that 85% of insurance company revenue is paid outer for healthcare coverage, leaving only 15% of health insurance company revenue to run the company.  The current average runs between 65% and 75%.  Congressional Democrats and other anti-capitalists consider anything over 15% representative of waste and overhead inherent in the greedy capitalist system.

The absurdity of those arguments aside, there is an unintended consequence with the Federal Government mandating the expense ratios of private companies.   Federal bureaucracies are now having to determine what services are covered within the 85% of revenue that must be paid out.

As healthcare insurance companies seek to be more competitive by covering services that may actually reduce costs, the government gets to decide if those services count toward the 85% that must be paid out.  Anything that the government decides does not count toward that level of spending will most likely not be covered.

According to a recent healthcare reform article in the Wall Street Journal, “…how to classify a program to double-check doctors orders to avoid one of the unnecessary surgeries that kill some 12,000 people every year? Or counseling, calls, emails and other types of case management to make sure patients comply with their diabetes regimen? Or investments in electronic medical records? Obviously these programs aren’t the same as an O.R. visit, but they still cost money, often a lot of it, and many insurance programs pay or are starting to pay for them.”  If a healthcare insurance company can not include those costs in the 85% federal mandate, they will not continue to pay for those programs.

Once again, Congress provides an example of why the government is not competent to run the lives of Americans or dictate how private companies can and should be run.  As Americans begin to understand and the negative impacts government overreach into our daily lives and voice opposition, will the government listen?  In the case of healthcare reform, the Congress proves that it is unwilling or unable to listen the American people.

Reconciliation is a process that was set up to allow versions of a House and Senate budget bill to be made into one by making the numbers equal.  However, the Democrats are now threatening to use reconciliation to force health care reform through congress and down the throats of the American people.

According to Senator Reid, the Democrats would use reconciliation to make small changes to the existing Senate bill to make it more palatable to key Democrat Senators and members of the house.

Since losing their 60 seat filibuster proof Senate, the Democrats have been scrambling to find a way to pass their unpopular version of health care reform.  It would appear that they are willing to use one of the least popular with the American people to do it.

Conspiracy theorists claim that the “open” health care reform summit held by Democrats later this week is setting the stage for the use of reconciliation.  The claim is that the Democrats will show up with their version of health care reform, listen to and then reject a few ideas from Republicans, and then claim they have no other option but reconciliation to get health care reform through congress.

It now appears that the President and the Democrat leadership is willing to go it alone for health care reform.  However, using reconciliation to pass health care reform does not just pit Democrats against the Republicans, it pits them against the will of the American people.

On Fox News Sunday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs indicated that the White House is still considering pushing Obamacare Health Care reform through the Senate by what ever means possible.  Even as many prominent Senate and House Democrats are indicating that the Scott Brown win signals that the American public is against the current bill and how it is being pushed through Congress, the leaders of the Democrat party are still trying to find a way to pass the increasingly unpopular bill.Despite the popular view of the Scott Brown Senate victory, the White House seems to be reading the Democrat Senate loss in Massachusetts as a positive development.  According to Robert Gibbs, “More people voted to express their support for Barack Obama than to oppose him”. 

This arrogance is partially why many Americans are opposing the Obama agenda.  The Obama Administration seems to be clueless that many Americans support the idea of Obamacare health care reform, but not the secretive way that the bills are being created or the details of the Obamacare bills.

Hopefully, the Scott Brown win will lead to a common sense bill that will address many of the items that most Americans agree on and leaves out the trillion dollar costs and tax increases that will be used to add to the ever increasing size of the goernment.

Earlier this week, the head of the SEIU warned the President and Democrats that they must pass Obamacare or SEIU would be forced to not focus on getting Democrats elected in November.

The head of the SEIU is upset about reports that Democrats are considering pursuing a new bill that addresses the healthcare issues that both Democrats and Republicans agree on.  A compromise Obamacare bill could get pushed though that addresses life time caps, pre-existing conditions, and portability without costing trillions of dollars and creating a massive new government buracracy.

SEIU’s president, Andy Stern, warned that Democrats must pass the Senate version of the bill or SEIU members may be forced to focus on local candidates in the November mid-term elections rather that push for national candidates.

It will be interesting to see if the President and Congressional Democrats fear special interests groups more than the American people.

The terms of the deal will increase the Senate’s threshold on plans costing over $23,000 to $24,000.  The change would also remove dental and vision plan costs from the calculation of the total cost of a plan.  In addition, the plan will exempt collective bargaining agreements made prior to 2013.  This would in effect, exempt union members from having to pay taxes on Cadillac insurance plans that the rest of Americans will have to pay until roughly 2015 to 2017.

How do the unions benefit from being exempted from the tax for the first 5 to 7 years?  They would have to either believe that there will be an amendment to the final bill or another bill exempting them forever.  There is also the possibility that they have agreed to lower the coverage of union health insurance plans to come in under the cap and avoid paying the 40% tax.  The first option is probably more likely.  Another scenario is that the Democrat leadership has agreed to bring the Employee “Free” Choice Act to the floor soon.

However, as pointed out at HotAir.com, this presents a number of problems for the bill.

First, this will lower the tax revenue that the health care reform bill has established.  If you ever believed the accounting tricks that said the bill was deficit neutral, the missing revenue from taxing Cadillac plans will put further pressure on the deficit.

Another problem with the health care reform bill is that they also plan to index the $24,000 cost to a yet to be determined cost of living adjustment.  So if you live in a state that insurance is relatively more expensive, your limit may be $26,000 rather than $24,000.  This provision raises questions of constitutionality as Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution that states that Congress has the power to levy taxes, “but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States[.]“ 

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next 2 months as more an more special interest groups like Unions oppose the bill and are given special deals to support it.  Hopefully, Congress will eventually start to listen to the most important special interest group in the Nation, the American tax payers who are overwhelmingly against Obamacare style health care reform.

One sticking point is the so-called Cadillac insurance tax provision in the Senate health care reform bill.  The bill seeks to partially fund Obamacare by placing a 40% tax on health insurance plans that cost over $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 or $23,000 for a family (depending upon where you get your information).  This tax will hit many middle class families, which doesn’t seem to bother the Democrats as much as you would think. 

However, this Cadillac insurance tax will also hit many union members.  The major Unions are against this provision being in the final health care reform bill which is making several Democrats in the house nervous as Unions pour hundreds of millions of dollars to the Democratic party every year.

Previous version of the Senate health care reform bill had exclusions for some or all Unions leaving non-union middle class workers and others with generous health insurance plans holding the bag.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air pointed out that there is another problem with the Cadillac insurance tax.  It seems that the Senate is counting on making hundreds of billions of dollars on the tax and not counting on the fact that many people will opt for cheaper plans as the excise tax will drive up the cost of insurance for many Americans.  This would further add to the deficit which is against one of Obama’s major goals for the legislation.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next month as the Democrats race to get a health care reform bill to Obama’s desk prior to the State of the Union Address in February.

However, this doesn’t mean the bill is headed directly to the President’s desk.

The Senate health care bill has to be reconciled with the House health care bill that was passed in the House several months ago.  Several House Dems are upset with the lack of a “public option” in the Senate health care bill version and are vowing to vote against any bill that doesn’t include a public option.

According to a post at HotAir.com, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is upset that the Senate health care bill forces people to purchase health insurance, as does the House health care bill, but the Senate health care bill doesn’t provide a government run health insurance option.  House Democrats see this as a give away to insurance companies as it will add roughly 30 million new customers.  The far left leaning Dems in the House do not want any part of helping private insurance companies.

The conference commitee will pick up the bills in January and will begin the process of reconciling the differances in the two bills.  It remains to be seen if the final bill will be better or worse that the two current versions.  Conservative Patriot HQ believe the final bill will be much worse than either one of the two bills can be separately.