It’s late Sunday night and I just received grim news. The United States Senate has voted to end the debate on the Health Care bill. It will now be conferenced with the House and is very close to passing. My feelings echo those of Senator Mitch McConnell: ”Mark my words: this legislation will reshape our nation. And Americans have already issued their verdict. They don’t want it. They don’t like this bill, and they don’t like lawmakers playing games with their health care to secure the votes they need to pass it.” 

 Let’s contact our elected officials TODAY. Put a sign in your car window. Get together with your friends, make an armful of signs, go stand on a street corner, and make some noise. If we’re going to go down, let’s go down swinging!

From CNN.com:

Key vote on health bill early Monday splits along party lines

Majority Leader Harry Reid needs every vote of the Democratic caucus to pass bill

The U.S. House has already passed its version of the health care bill

Democrats won a major victory in their push for health care reform early Monday morning as the Senate voted to end debate on a package of controversial proposals to a sweeping $871 billion bill.

The 60 to 40 party-line vote — cast shortly after 1 a.m. — kept Senate Democrats on track to pass the bill on Christmas Eve. If it passes, the measure will then have to be merged with a roughly $1 trillion plan passed by House of Representatives in November. The Senate went into recess until noon Monday shortly after the vote.

The vote left President Obama on the cusp of claiming victory on his top domestic priority and enacting the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid over four decades ago.

“Today, the Senate took another historic step toward our goal of delivering access to quality, affordable health care to all Americans,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said in a statement.

Republicans ripped the majority for passing the measure in the middle of the night and accused Democrats of ramming the bill through despite growing public opposition.

“Make no mistake: If the people who wrote this bill were proud of it, they wouldn’t be forcing this vote in the dead of night,” argued Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

“Mark my words: this legislation will reshape our nation. And Americans have already issued their verdict. They don’t want it. They don’t like this bill, and they don’t like lawmakers playing games with their health care to secure the votes they need to pass it.”

The unusual timing of the vote was a consequence of Senate rules, Democrats’ determination to pass the bill before adjourning for the holidays, and the GOP’s willingness to use every possible legislative tactic to slow the bill’s progress.

The vote was the first of three this week requiring Democrats to win the backing of 60 members — enough to break a GOP filibuster. Final passage of the measure, in the contrast, will require a bare majority in the 100-member chamber.

Many political observers believe Monday’s outcome indicates a likely Democratic win on the remaining procedural hurdles and the final vote.

Unanimous Republican opposition has forced Reid to win the support of all 60 members of his traditionally fractious Democratic caucus. Compromises made to win the backing of more conservative members, such as Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, have enraged many liberal Democrats and threatened to undermine support for the bill.

Liberal Democrats are particularly upset with Reid’s decision to abandon a government-run public health insurance option and an expansion of Medicare to Americans as young as age 55 — ideas strongly opposed by Lieberman and other centrists.

For more, read here.

Remember that pledge given by Obama that he would NOT raise taxes on the middle class? If this bill passes, it will be a spectacular breaking of another Obama promise. 

2010, here we come.