Would Harry Reid rather get re-elected and see Pelosi-care get flushed or would he rather force Pelosi-care on America and become ex-senator Reid??

As for Pelosi … if at least 218 other house members want the PEOPLE to get to vote on healthcare reform in November, it doesn’t matter what she wants.

This isn’t really about health care reform, so you can’t expect the leadership in the House and Senate to act like it is.

This is all about them controlling vast amounts of money and controlling the amount of money we are allowed to keep.

Don’t expect them to let go of the issue by surrendering to a referendum.

If Reid and Pelosi agree to let the people vote on it, AND there are not enough Senators willing to fillibuster it for other reasons – then it will pass Congress, but it might be defeated at the polls in November.

If there are not enough Senators willing to fillibuster it for other reasons, and the people don’t get a chance to vote it down in November, then we’re stuck with it.

Most people don’t want health care rationing, death panels, or higher healthcare/insurance costs, so given a chance to vote on it directly, I think the majority of American voters would vote Pelosi-care down.

The end product of the mess is that legislatures simply refuse to legislate. They just sit around and wait for ballot initiatives, and damn near every one of them expands the role of government in our lives and costs a fortune.

And, God forbid, we might even do something really drastic like electing leaders who actually represent their constituents as they promised while campaigning. Not to mention the possibility that we might elect someone such as Sa……… ahem, well, you get the picture.

If demanding the bill be voted on by the people in November causes the bill to die, that’s fine with me.

If Pelosi & Reid say they know better than the American people what’s good for them, so the American people don’t get to vote on healthcare directly, well let them come out and say it. Let Reid & Pelosi call all the voters ignorant.

Your points would have more weight if:
1. we did not have an extreme leftist Dem president and a Dem super-majority in Congress
2. all the congressmen were seriously studying the bill before they vote on it, instead of being forced to vote on it before they even have a chance to read the $%#&* thing.
3. the checks and balances were working better

The founders didn’t think the American people should directly elect senators and they certainly didn’t think that the federal government should get to tax/fine people for choosing not to buy health insurance. Why should conservatives “play nice” about what the founders intents were when the leftists clearly are not abiding by what the founders intended?
So I think your points have merit in a strict constitutional sense, but from a public-relations sense, not so much.

The man on the street cares more about keeping Reid and Pelosi from shoving death panels and rationing down his throat than he cares about constitutional intracacies.

1) It perpetuates the idea that health insurance and government intrusion into health care delivery is appropriate

2) It creates a precedent that any significant decision has to be made “by the people” through something like a national referendum. The Founders obviously felt there was no place for this direct input in our Constitution.

We created a legislative and executive branch to create the laws and administer them. Rather than sub optimize their Constitutional roles through direct referendum votes as you suggest, let’s just ensure that this IS an issue in 2010 and 2012, along with a more cogent discussion of the role and extent of our government.

Let us elect those that support the Constitutional framework we have, and hold them accountable at each and every turn when they stray from it.