While you congratulate yourselves today on what you've done, this is a sad day for the rest of us. Last night you had enough votes, 219 (3 more than a bare majority) to impose your will on the American people. A vast new army of federal bureaucrats will soon start second-guessing our doctors and taking control of treatments away from us as patients. You claim to have "given" millions of people insurance, but most of us are simply being forced to buy expensive insurance, whether or not we want or need it, under penalty of law. Some gift. And the tax credits you offer, of course, are just returning a portion of the tax hikes that will slam the U.S. economy, less the vig for your public employee union friends.
All 219 of you put blind adherence to a radical government-first ideology ahead of the wishes of the American people. We are less free today than we were yesterday. Our health care will now likely be permanently politicized, subject to the whim of our often out of touch political class.
Last night was your turn to vote. Your constituents made clear what they wanted, but you weren't listening. But you can't ignore voters forever. November is coming.
How do you think voters will react to a majority of the Congress putting an extreme left-wing ideology and corrupt deal-making over what a clear majority of the American people want?
Three days ago Americans for Prosperity started a Web site, NovemberIsComing.com, which asks voters to take a very simple pledge--if my member of Congress votes YES on the health care takeover, I will vote NO on his or her re-election this November.
Our Web site NovemberIsComing.com collected over 300,000 signers in just three days. This health care takeover is a vote-moving issue for millions of Americans who are fed up with you, a political class that wants to control our banks, our auto companies, our insurance companies, and now even our health care. It's too much. Every time a voter interacts with the vast new health care bureaucracy of over 100 new agencies, boards, and commissions--or is denied a medical treatment recommended by a doctor because a bureaucrat says no--voters will remember yesterday's vote and you, the 219 ideologues who are responsible.
You may think your new friends in the pharmaceutical industry (who stand to make a fortune from this bill) or the big insurance companies (into whose arms you're forcing millions of unwilling customers) will spend enough money to pull you through in November. They will certainly try their best. But they won't fool many of us.
Many of you accepted corrupt backroom deals in exchange for your votes. In the past pork-barrel politics have been a ticket to re-election. But it won't work this time, because it was too blatant, too crass, too offensive to rank-and-file voters who understood the overall stakes.
There is no escaping or spinning yesterday's vote for any of you co-conspirators who voted yes.
No explanations will satisfy Americans who yelled out their opposition over and over again for month after month as each of your supposed deadlines passed. Yesterday's vote will define your careers. And judging by the incredibly rapid growth of NovemberIsComing.com, it may well end many of your careers this November.
Mr. Kerpen is vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity. He can be reached on Twitter, Facebook, and through www.PhilKerpen.com.
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