McCook's town hall meeting

Since then I have carefully read and reread Lorri Sughroue's report of the meeting plus an editorial, author unnamed, in the Gazette to see what I missed. Nothing like being there in person, but it looks like I missed a carefully scripted meeting. Reports are that participants had to submit questions before the meeting and then those were sorted so that Senator Ben was only exposed to non-controversial topics. Like I say I wasn't there.

The way I see it Senator Ben has a terrible problem on his hands. He is a professed Democrat and Harry Reid is the leader of a Democrat majority in the U.S. Senate. Senator Nelson is well-respected in Democrat circles even though he doesn't reliably vote the party line. Ben's problem is that his electorate is mainly conservative so he had to satisfy us to get reelected, which he obviously desires. Then, too, Ben's career experience was in insurance, health insurance included. President Obama appears to be dead set on eliminating private insurance and going to a single-payer government funded system. Like Senator Ben, I am for healthcare reform, yes, socialized medicine, no. Obviously our President is staking his own future on 100 percent socialized medicine.

Which will it be? Will our favorite senator vote to affirm President Obama's single payer socialized medicine dream or will he vote the wishes of the majority of his electorate which dictates no socialized medicine? Commendably in the town hall meeting Senator Ben declared that he would not vote for any bill that would cover illegal immigrants or fund abortion. He professed to be reluctant to raise taxes to support Obamacare although in the past he voted for the stimulus and TARP plans.

I've learned that Senator Ben has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to make improvements to the current medical insurance way of doing business. One of the big problems is the fact that insurance directors in each state are political appointments and each state has different restrictions and regulations. Ben has met with many of those state directors in search of a better way of doing business. He has also championed Nebraska's venue of tort reform which gives punitive damage awards in medical lawsuits to the schools, not the plaintiffs, which cuts greedy lawyers' incentive to sue doctors.

Senator Ben has an out, though, and it goes something like this. Soon two bills will come out of committee in the Senate. Ben has been working on one authored by Sen. Baucus in the finance committee. In that bill Ben probably has enough clout to ensure that abortions will not be funded and that illegal immigrants will not be given free medical care as is now the practice. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will then extract whatever he likes from Senator Baucus's bill and one produced by Senator Tom Harkin in his Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He, probably with Obama help, will graft those provisions onto a House bill that has already passed and is awaiting Senate approval. Sen. Pelosi can't seem to get her House Obamacare bill passed and sent to the Senate. Therefore, the Reid amendment will be attached to another bill, any subject, which the House has already passed. That new healthcare bill will then go back to the House, where Speaker Pelosi probably can get it passed as cobbled together in the Senate. Forwarded to and signed by the president it will then become the law of the land.

Now it takes a two-thirds majority vote for the Senate to consider an amendment to an already passed House bill. Senator Ben will have to vote YEA to stop any chance of a Republican filibuster. His vote is needed, as there are only 60 (the minimum) democrat votes, so the measure to allow discussion and amendment of the already passed House bill should pass. Then the Senate can consider the amended bill, with Harry Reid's choice of healthcare tacked on, which only has to pass with a 51 percent majority to be sent back to the House. Ben can then vote No, knowing that the Obamacare bill will pass without his vote in the Senate. When re-election comes around, Senator Ben can then point to his NAY vote and say that he wasn't really for Obamacare in the first place. However I feel he should vote NO to bring the bill out of committee if it has the public option included or, better yet, torpedo the full Senate vote to allow the House bill for consideration.

His NO vote will ensure that President Obama's government option fails and the socialized medicine pushers would have had go to back to the drawing board as Hillarycare thankfully did 10 years ago.

Senator Ben's is a Hobson's choice. Vote YES for Obamacare that includes the government option and his liberal Democrat leadership will love him during his last term in the Senate. Vote NO to stave off the yoke of socialism "for the good of Nebraska" and he'll get my vote once again. The clear cut choice is his.

I can't blame Mike Hendricks for wanting to back off from politics. If I were a liberal Democrat I'd be embarrassed too!

That is the way I saw it.