For Head-in-Sand Senators, the Mass Strike Is Over

October 13, 2009 (LPAC)—Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee voted up his so-called healthcare bill this afternoon, complete with its IMAC Nazi "T4" euthanasia panel, called a Medicare Commission (MC), by a vote of 14-9, with Maine's Olympia Snowe joining all Democrats in support, opposed by all the other Republicans. The vote followed five hours of predominantly stupid debate, in which Democrats congratulated each other for all their hard work, while Republicans objected on the grounds of middle-class tax increases and Medicare cuts, while steering clear of the real issue of Nazi-like euthanasia.

Instead, it was left to the euthanasia-supporter Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia to raise it. The way he did so indicated that Senators are relieved that they can return to business-as-usual now that, as they imagine, the mass strike is over,— they will soon find they are totally wrong in this.

Speaking last before the vote, Rockefeller noted that he "really believed" in the MC. He went on to lament that "it's sad" that we never discussed "end-of-life care." Why didn't we? "Because the screamers took hold of us briefly. But we all know that 40-60% of Medicare expenditures occur during the last six months of life. I wish my mother had had an option like that. We kept her alive 12 years, but the last six years were too long. I think they did her harm, and the doctor's motto is 'do no harm.'

"NOW we're free to talk about anything," Rockefeller concluded.

It is worth noting that Sen. Hatch of Utah, the first speaker against the bill, began by noting, as Lyndon LaRouche has denounced, that the White House plans to concoct what he called "the real bill," behind closed doors, in so-called "reconciliation" or combining of bills. Hatch said that all the committee's discussions "had been for naught," because the real bill would be drawn up behind closed doors. He said he hoped Senators would have at least 72 hours to read it, before being required to vote on it.

LaRouche has said such a closed-doors procedure is unacceptable; that negotiations must be public.