Heeeeeeere's Harry!

From the New York Times:

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, put forward his version of sweeping health care legislation on Wednesday, which a Senate aide said would cost $849 billion over 10 years. Mr. Reid promised that it would reduce the federal budget deficit while covering most of the uninsured and adding new benefits to Medicare.

The senior Senate Democratic leadership aide said the bill’s costs would be more than offset by new taxes and reductions in government spending, particularly on Medicare, so that the legislation would reduce future federal deficits by $127 billion.

The official cost analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was not immediately available, but if the cost projection holds up, it would meet President Obama’s requirement that the bill’s costs be held to about $900 billion. Mr. Reid presented the bill at a meeting with his fellow Democrats.

The measure includes a so-called public option allowing people to buy into a new government health insurance plan, but states could opt out of that.

Though broadly similar to the House bill, Mr. Reid’s proposal is expected to differ in important ways. It is, for example, likely to increase the Medicare payroll tax on high-income people and to impose a new excise tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health plans offered by employers to their employees.

Aides said that he hoped to take an important procedural vote to begin debate on the legislation before senators leave town for a weeklong Thanksgiving break. Mr. Reid was expected to discuss the legislation at a news conference later on Wednesday evening.

Senate Democratic leaders are still trying frantically to nail down the final votes needed to begin debate on the legislation. To do so, they need the unanimous support of all 60 members of their caucus, a huge test of Mr. Reid’s leadership skills.

And at least two potential Democratic holdouts – Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska – signaled on Wednesday that they were open to supporting a motion to begin debate.

If the Democrats succeed in pulling together the needed votes, the Senate intends to devote most of December to a rollicking, unpredictable debate that could determine the fate of legislation that Mr. Obama has declared to be his top domestic priority.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, both former senators, were on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, trying to help Mr. Reid round up votes.

Republicans have vowed to fight the legislation at every turn, saying it represents a dangerous expansion in the role of government that would increase taxes and insurance costs for millions of people.

Republicans promised a fierce floor fight, including a raft of amendments.

“It’s going to be a Holy War,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who is one of his party’s most respected voices on health policy but for the last several months has voiced nothing but fury over the Democrats’ efforts.

I'm not one who uses much Biblical imagery, but I find nothing "holy" about a den of reptilian Republicans who care not a wit about the adequacy of health care for the citizenry they allegedly represent. Their Machiavellian anti-reform machinations in the face of tens of millions of uninsured Americans have amounted to a demented carnival with a rotating band of barkers and an arch crassness that is disgusting. Trickle-down touchhole Ronald Reagan fear-mongered Medicare in 1961, falsely claiming it was the freeway to socialism. Fast-forward 48 years, and the conservative chorus remains the same: shrill, off-key, poorly written and performed.

Thousands of people are losing their health care coverage every day, and millions of Americans are without any coverage at all. Many people believe they are adequately covered by company plans until they actually have to use one. There's something happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, G.O.P.?