Senate defeats filibuster on health care

And if we weren’t living under a socialist tyranny before, well, Merry Christmas, suckers.

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats won a crucial test vote on President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, putting them on track for passage before Christmas of the historic legislation to remake the nation’s medical system and cover 30 million uninsured.

All 58 Democrats and the Senate’s two independents held together early Monday against unanimous Republican opposition, providing the exact 60-40 margin needed to shut down a threatened GOP filibuster.

Let’s do away with the idea that there’s no difference between Republican and Democrats. Yes, they’re both generally full of weaselly, myopic, corrupt bastards, but this would not have happened with a President McCain.

The vote came shortly after 1 a.m. with the nation’s capital blanketed in snow, the unusual timing made necessary in order to get to a final vote by Christmas Eve presuming Republicans stretch out the debate as much as the rules allow. Despite the late hour and a harshly partisan atmosphere, Democrats’ spirits were high.

"Today we are closer than we’ve ever been to making Sen. Ted Kennedy’s dream of universal health insurance coverage a reality," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said ahead of the vote, alluding to the late Massachusetts senator who died of brain cancer in August.

"Vote your hopes, not your fears. Seize the moment," Harkin urged colleagues.

And so, the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill shall pass. And those of us who hoped there was a principled member of the Democrat caucus in the Senate now have our fears confirmed. We hoped our taxes wouldn’t go up. We hoped there wouldn’t be an individual mandate. We hoped the federal government wouldn’t fund abortions. We hoped they wouldn’t extend government-enforced health care to tens of millions of people without “creating or saving” a single doctor or nurse. We hoped they wouldn’t complete their framework for a complete government takeover of the economy.

The part that I keep thinking about is that my health care was already pretty good. If it ain’t broke, “fix” it til it is, I guess.