Last night the Senate voted on a number of motions to instruct that are supposed to help guide Senate conferees in their negotiations with the House over FY 2010 Budget Reconciliation. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) sponsored one motion which read in part:
The Senator from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint, moves that the managers on the part of the Senate … be instructed to insist that the conference report on the concurrent resolution … shall not decrease the number of Americans enrolled in private health insurance, while increasing the number of Americans enrolled in government-managed, rationed health care.
This language is important because many aspects of Obama’s health care budget seek to expand the numbers of Americans enrolled in government-managed health care, which necessarily then “crowds out” private health care forcing more Americans into government managed care.
Those voting against DeMint’s motion (and therefore for the unlimited expansion of government rationed care) include:
Bingaman (D-NM)
Brown (D-OH)
Burris (D-IL)
Cardin (D-MD)
Durbin (D-IL)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Levin (D-MI)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Sanders (I-VT)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
