A quickie-

Saw this online as I was perusing and browsing and basically gathering info.  It’s a nice refresher course on what’s what and where are we as a Nation in regards to this Health Care Nightmare Bill.

I hope it brings things back into focus.  I know I myself was getting a bit overwhelmed with trying to keep track of it all.

Please to enjoy, and be sure to stay vigilant!  This Saturday, the 21st of November, will be one possible step closer to a true Obama Nation.  You’ll know what I’m talking about IF you read this article!

Long Live the Republic.

From The Yahoo! Newsroom:

If you’ve recently found yourself wondering, “What the heck is going on with the health care reform debate?”, you’re not alone. The American legislative process is unwieldy, and never more so than in the United States Senate. Now that the House has passed a bill, the Senate will try to do the same starting Saturday.

Because we think you may have some of the same questions we did, and the bill being discussed would constitute one of the most consequential in a generation if passed, we thought we’d put together a quick primer on what to expect in the weeks to come.

So, what’s happening tomorrow?

Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will bring his proposed bill to the floor of the Senate to begin debate. To get things started, he’ll need to pass a “motion to proceed.”

The big suspense is over whether or not the bill will be successfully filibustered by opponents trying to stop it from being debated and eventually passed. If it is, the bill is dead. If it isn’t, debate begins.

What the heck is a filibuster?

Tomorrow night’s “motion to proceed” vote is the first of many times the process can be stopped by a filibuster by the bill’s opponents. In this case, Republicans would try to prevent the vote by extending debate indefinitely by, for example, reading Sarah Palin’s new book over and over and over again and refusing to stop.

To stop the hypothetical “Going Rogue” reading, Harry Reid will need 60 senators to vote to end the filibuster. This is called a “cloture” vote.

To get to 60, Reid will need all 58 Democrats and both independents.

Who would filibuster and why?

Excluding the outside possibility that Olympia Snowe would break ranks, all 40 Republicans would likely support a filibuster. So, to prevent Democrats from getting the 60 votes necessary to break one, only one Democrat or independent would need to join them.

The most likely suspects for this are independent Joe Lieberman and conservative Democrats Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Blanche Lincoln. Recent speculation has focused on Lincoln, who faces low approval numbers in conservative Arkansas and an upcoming re-election bid in 2010. Nelson and Landrieu are also both from conservative states, though neither is up for re-election in 2010. Lieberman is not up for re-election and is from more liberal Connecticut, but may be influenced by the large insurance industry presence in his state.

What happens if the Senate does pass a bill?

After weeks of speeches and amendments and filibuster threats, if the Senate passes a bill, it moves on to a “conference committee.” Here, members of both the House and the Senate will negotiate over the final details while trying to merge the bill passed by the House with the bill passed by the Senate.

All the hot-button issues will be on the table. If the Senate passes a bill without a “Public Option” it will need to be debated again. Many House Democrats want the controversial Stupak Amendment, which bans funding or subsidies for any insurance plan that funds abortion, removed in conference.

If these issues are ironed out, the committee will create a “conference report,” or final bill, that will need to be passed yet again by both the House and the Senate. Yet again this vote in the Senate can be filibustered, so any ”conference report” will need the support of 60 senators.

If the “conference report” is passed in both houses of Congress, it will be sent to President Obama’s desk for his likely signature.

When will all of this be over?

Up until last week, few people thought that this process could be completed by the end of the year. But the Senate Democrat’s bill recently received positive feedback from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan federal agency that advises Congress on financial matters. This has led some political observers to think that maybe, just maybe, Americans will know whether or not their country’s health care system will be dramatically overhauled in time for the holidays.

– Thomas Kelley and Brett Michael Dykes are contributors to the Yahoo! News blog