by Phil Kerpen

One of the more extreme proposals floated early in the national health care debate was the idea of taxing soda and other sugary beverages. That trial balloon was almost immediately shot down by the American public, but the Obama administration is attempting to achieve, by subterfuge, soda taxes and a lot of other ways to micromanage our lives in the name of public health—whether or not ObamaCare passes. The mechanism is buried in last year’s $862-billion-and-counting stimulus bill, and works by diverting hundreds of millions of dollars that should be promoting economic growth to instead pay lobbyists to push for higher taxes and nanny-state controls over our lives.

Read the rest at BigGovernment.com.

Listen to a related 2-minute KerpenCast.

While it would appear that the health care bill is constantly changing, it's actually not. The big upcoming House vote will be on the Senate bill (H.R. 3590), exactly as it passed the Senate on Christmas Eve. It still includes dozens of corrupt special-interest deals like the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Chris Dodd's $100M University of Connecticut Hospital earmark, etc. There are a lot of promises being made right now that the bill will be fixed or improved in various ways after it passes, possibly via reconciliation. It's very important to understand, however, that once the House passes the Senate bill it goes to the president to be signed into law.

Here's a refresher on the 10 Worst Provisions in this bill (H.R. 3590):

Spends Way Too Much: $2.5 trillion over the first ten years that the plan is fully implemented

Raises Taxes During a Recession: Hikes taxes $493 billion with new levies on so-called “Cadillac” plans, a new Medicare payroll tax on higher-income earners, and taxes on health insurance and drug manufacturing companies, which are sure to be passed on consumers in the form of higher premiums

Individual Mandate: Requires individuals to carry health insurance or exacts a fine up to $750

Business Burdens: taxes employers with more than 50 full-time workers if they are not offered insurance. CBO estimates employers would opt to drop as many as 5 million workers from private insurance, and pay the fine instead of maintaining current coverage

Huge Medicaid Expansion: an estimated 40 percent expansion of the entitlement program would greatly increase costs for government and taxpayers. States would be forced to manage the increased load. However, the federal government would pick up a large share of the new cost

Insurance Companies can still Limit Benefits: Although one of the prime reasons for this entire effort was to force insurance companies to live up to their commitments, the Senate bill would only ban lifetime-benefit caps. Insurance companies can still invoke yearly limits that will have essentially the same effect

Bad for Seniors: Cuts $120 billion from Medicare Advantage, which CBO says will result in fewer seniors with access to vision, dental and flu shots. Ultimately, up to 2.6 million seniors could lose their Medicare Advantage coverage

More Bureaucracy: Creates comparative effectiveness panels, a Medicare Advisory Board and a Health Care Commissioner, all of whom would be responsible for oversight of the greatly-expanded government role in health care and invoking rationing in attempts to contain cost

Doesn’t Tackle Tort Reform: Despite the president’s commitment to lower medical liability costs, the bill only contains a “Sense of Senate” provision, with no real reforms that could save up to $54 billion over ten years

Auto-Enrollment: Businesses with more than 200 workers will be required to automatically enroll employees in health coverage

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President Obama finally made it official yesterday:  he wants Congress to ignore Senate rules - and the American people - and use a parliamentary trick called "reconciliation" to pass his health care takeover legislation.  Fortunately, there's a catch: before the Senate can use reconciliation to force through Obama's tweaks, the House would have to pass the Senate health care bill.  And we must stop them. 

In his remarks the president demanded that Congress cave in and vote "in the next few weeks." 

The key vote will now occur in the House of Representatives - perhaps within 10 to 12 days - and we have to win it.  That's because it's impossible for the Senate to make changes via reconciliation until after the Senate bill has passed the House.  Of course, once the Senate bill passes the House, President Obama will sign it and it will become the law of the land - whether or not the reconciliation trick makes some changes around the edges. 

Speaker Pelosi will use every trick in the book to try and find the 216 votes she will need to ram through the health care bill passed "pre-Scott Brown" with 60 votes in the Senate back in December.  This will be the key vote. 

You remember the Senate bill... 2,700 pages of big government waste, fraud and abuse... corrupt back-room deals including the "Cornhusker Kickoff" to buy Ben Nelson's vote, the $300 million "Louisiana Purchase" to buy Senator Landrieu's vote... $1 trillion in new spending that will run up the deficit... tens of thousands of new government bureaucrats and dozens of new federal agencies... government boards to decide what medical treatments will be allowed and for which citizens based on the government's view of "quality of life"... a vast new entitlement when current entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are already headed for bankruptcy.  I could go on but you get the picture.

Democrats in the House will try to justify their votes for the disastrous Senate bill based on vague promises that it will be "fixed" later. But no changes could fix this disastrous bill. If the Senate bill passes the House, a Washington takeover of health care will be a certainty.  

That means in just the next few days, we've got to make sure our individual members of the House of Representatives feel the maximum heat from grassroots activists like you and me.

You may think, "My member is a firm NO vote, so it's a waste of time" or the opposite, "My member of Congress is a YES vote so why call or email?"  Here's why I'm asking you to call and email them anyway:  we need to show the national outrage over this latest attempt to ram this through, and that means burying Congress, all of Congress, with personal calls and emails from Americans. 

I'm asking you to take 3 steps.

1. Call and email your member of Congress in the next 24 hours.  CLICK HERE to email your member, and CLICK HERE to call your member; - based on your zip code we can provide the right information for your representative.  Tell them to vote NO on the corrupt, big government Senate health care takeover bill and tell them Americans do not want this parliamentary trick called "reconciliation."   

2.  Forward this email to your friends, family, co-workers, and fellow activists across the nation asking them to do the same thing.  They may not know how much the House vote matters. Your friends and family need to hear from someone they know and trust that now is a crucial time on health care and protecting our freedoms.

3.  Commit to being a part of the "Honk Against the Health Care Takeover" event on March 16.  Here's how it will work.  On March 16 at 12 noon your time, we're asking you to drive to your nearest congressional district office CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICE NEAREST YOU and drive around the office for at least 15 minutes occasionally honking your horn. Our goal is to have Americans across the nation telling the politicians to keep their hands off our health care through this "Honk Against the Health Care Takeover" effort. 

CLICK HERE to let us know you'll join the effort and please recruit your friends.  To show people why you’re honking, when you register we’ll send you a "Honk Against the Health Care Takeover" bumper sticker. You’ll also be able to download and print a sign for your car window on our website.

Yesterday, the president actually said the nation is "waiting for [Washington] to act" on the health care issue. This is arrogance and political posturing at its worst. Like us, the president knows the truth.  Every reputable public opinion poll for months has clear majorities of the American people saying "NO" to the health care "reform" coming out of Washington, D.C.

Now is the time to finish the job of protecting this most personal freedom by stopping the Democrats' Washington takeover of our health care in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Statement of AFP VP for Policy Phil Kerpen on the potential recess appointment of Craig Becker:

The suggestion from Obama's Labor Secretary Hilda Solis that former SEIU General Counsel Craig Becker will be recess-appointed to the National Labor Relations Board is the latest evidence of the Obama administration's astonishing disregard for Congress, the American people, and the legislative process. This is on the heels of the president disregarding the Senate's rejecting his debt commission and creating it by executive order; the Senate rejecting the global warming agenda which he is now pursuing via EPA regulation; and his Internet regulation agenda (dead on arrival on Capitol Hill) being zealously pursued at the FCC. Congress emphatically rejected card check by the front door (the so-called Employee Free Choice Act) and by the back door (Becker's intention of implementing it without a vote of Congress is largely why the Senate -- with a bipartisan vote -- blocked his confirmation). To now doubly bypass Congress by recess-appointing Becker is a huge slap in the face to the American people, the Democratic process, Congress, and, most of all, the workers who may now be forced into unions against their consent.