November 11, 2009 -- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her socialist allies in the House rammed through a $1.2 trillion nationalized health care bill late Saturday night. The vote was 220-215. Democrats needed 218 to pass the bill. It only actually won by 2 votes.

PelosiCare will nationalize our health care system. As written, her 2,000 page bill increases taxes on all Americans, reduces coverage for seniors on Medicare, creates a “public option” that will eventually drive out private health insurance altogether, and creates 118 new federal bureaucracies.

See how your legislator voted on final passage.

During the vote, the Stupak pro-life amendment was passed. This forbids the federal government from using tax dollars to fund abortion in the health care bill.

However, this amendment will inevitably be stripped out in a House/Senate conference committee once the Senate passes its version of socialized medicine. Democrats began crowing about how they would strip this amendment from the bill within hours of it passing.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) says there’s no “guarantee” that the Stupak Amendment will remain in the bill. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) says she is “confident” the Stupak amendment will be deleted. “....we’re all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that’s the case.”
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has also admitted that the Stupak amendment is going to be removed. He admitted to The Hill magazine that he and other House members supported it only to make sure it was removed after the vote. According to Clyburn, “We were doing what was necessary to do to put the bill on the floor in about 12 hours.” He considers the Stupak amendment language to be “unacceptable.”

He and other Democrats voted for it in order to get an extra 10-11 votes necessary for the overall bill to pass. The Stupak amendment gave Democrats cover so they could vote for the amendment and then for the overall bill. They knew the amendment would be killed in committee.

“Even if the Stupak amendment stays in the health care bill, it will do nothing to minimize the incredible damage that nationalized health care will do to future generations and our economic well-being,” said TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. “Any incremental improvement to the bill is like dressing up a pig. The bill should be killed, not dressed up. It’s still a pig and it will destroy the best health care system in the world. But, maybe that’s the real goal behind it.”

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is also an M.D. who is opposed to passage of socialized medicine. He has been an outspoken critic of Obama/PelosiCare and has argued against it on the Senate floor and in committee hearings.

He is considering reading the entire 2,000-page PelosiCare bill on the Senate floor to make sure every Senator actually knows what’s in Pelosi’s government-run health care plan.

“On behalf of the TVC staff, I want to thank every supporter who wrote their Representative to oppose PelosiCare,” said TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. “We lost in the House, but still have a chance to defeat it in the Senate. We must keep fighting.”

TAKE ACTION: Contact your two U.S. Senators and ask that they vote NO on any health care plan that will nationalize our health care system or create new federal bureaucracies to interfere with the doctor/patient relationship.

Additional Resources:
PRESS STATEMENT: “Health Care Bill Still Bad Medicine for America”
Stop The Harry-Kari Of Our Health Care System
TVC Chairman Joins Thousands Against PelosiCare
Republicans Offer Alternative To PelosiCare