For a blogger, I really don’t know what to write. Anything I say will be construed as hyperbole by my liberal readers and now sadly, former friends.

I’ve been at this political blogging for long time now. I’ve written many an impassioned blog post and advocated for and against many bills. Something about health care is different. At this point, the brutal and horrible debate has cost two friendships. A fellow conservative friend agreed that this is a different fight and commented that it’s personal.  I’ve never encountered something like this before.

My opposition to this bill goes far beyond party lines. On this fight, the personal is political.

In August of 2004, I was a senior at the University of Tennessee. I remember walking towards Dunford Hall, where I worked for the campus IT department when I realized my phone was on silent. I had seven missed calls from my mom. Immediately, I called her back. The news was devastating. My grandfather had cancer.

Like most men of his generation, he was a veteran and depended on the VA for his health care. For more than a year, he had repeatedly gone to the VA with stomach pains. He kept getting prescriptions for antacids and sent home. After my grandmother insisted, he visited a private physician. The news was bad. He had colon cancer. The same disease that killed his mother, my great-grandmother, back in the 70s.

Colon cancer is treatable if caught early. My grandfather did what he was supposed to do and went to the doctor when symptoms started. Even though he had a family history of cancer, no one ordered a colonoscopy. No one had investigated it more. After fighting it for several years, he passed away in January 2007, a small, fragile shell of the tanned construction worker that I try to remember.

That, my friends, is the treatment we’re going to get in the near future. If our government can’t even provide adequate treatment to the brave men and women who fought for our country, there’s not much hope for us.

Health care also crosses a philosophical line for me.

This isn’t socialism, but it opens the door towards socialism. Yesterday, Rep. Michele Bachmann said that this bill will put 50% of private companies under the thumb of the government. That is unacceptable.

I realize that I’ll lose many of you here. This battle over health care gets down to fundamental differences between the two warring political philosophies. Conservatives, or more accurately classical liberals, believe that freedom is fragile. In order to protect it, the individual must be stronger than the government. Yes, people fall through the cracks. It’s unfortunate and no political system is perfect.

Which is where churches have failed. As a Christian, I believe that we should help our fellow men, and I do what I can. Since churches weren’t doing a good job of taking care of the community, government created entitlement programs. Suddenly American liberals or progressives, who directly come from socialist movements in the United States, had a moral platform. They put conservatives to shame. We weren’t doing our job, and taxpayers have been suffering since then.

Then there’s the gross violation of our Constitutional rights.

I love grassroots politics. It’s why I love the Internet. Small groups of people are able to organize without much cost or hassle and can multiply their voices to influence government. Or that’s the theory.

It hasn’t worked that way in the health care fight. I’ve watched as liberals I know, Christian liberals, have scoffed at “Tea baggers” and insulted them. There is nothing wrong with protesting and gathering to fight a bill that you oppose. That’s about as American as it gets.

But not to this government or current Democrats.

Obama and Democratic leadership have responded to our concerns with arrogance. When we object, we’re shushed and told, “it will save money.” That’s what has bothered me the most: the arrogance that these people know better!

We have rights to object and question the actions of our elected officials. That’s what makes this country a democracy. The fact that thousands of people have repeatedly dropped everything and driven all night on their own dime is astounding. These aren’t lemmings who blindly listen to Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. These are people concerned about the future of our country and our spending. The failure to recognize that is the height of arrogance, and those who have shown those behaviors will be job hunting come November.

We do need health care reform in this country, but this is bad bill. If Democrats can’t realize that, they deserve to lose in 2010.

Susan B. Anthony List announced that Congressman Marsha Blackburn will be one of the Republicans at the summit. Blackburn is a tough, fiscal and social conservative. It also helps to have a woman articulating pro-life views. Plus she’s from Tennessee. Not that important of a factor, but she’s part of the delegation from my state.

Independent Women’s Forum raises some good points. Let’s scrap this bureaucratic monstrosity and find real answers that actually lower costs, such as tort reform and portability. The only problem is that those two issues directly hurt special interests that are long-time Democratic supporters. Thus, President Obama is at a crossroads. He can pass actual health care reform that will save money and make the market more affordable for all Americans. Or he can grow an increasingly bloated government with money that we don’t have and lower the quality of healthcare for all Americans. Option A actually helps people, while Option B protects his special interests. Sadly, I’m fairly certain that Obama will go with Option B, particularly since unions have been given special consideration.

But can he actually pass something? Can the anointed one, who entered his presidency with approval ratings in the high 70s and majorities in both houses, actually pass some type of major legislation before the mid-term elections? It’s not looking so good for the Dems. I hope that my Democratic friends on the Hill are job hunting.

Hot Air and Daily Caller question if Pelosi has the votes. House numbers have changed since the December vote while outrage over healthcare has only increased. February to November is a much shorter time period to remember a vote than December to November. House Democrats need this vote over and forgotten, and the American people are clearly tired of this debate. A CBS survey reports that 53% of Americans don’t believe we can afford to pass this legislation, which is more expensive than the Senate bill and provides funding for abortions.

Then there’s the problem of the vice president. Perhaps, we should make a new euphemism: out of the mouth of Biden.

• Kay Hagan (NC)
• Evan Bayh (IN)
• Ben Nelson (NE)
• Mary Landrieu (LA)
• Mark Blegich (AK)
• Kent Conrad (ND)
• Byron Dorgan (ND)
• Blanche Lincoln (AR)
• Mark Pryor (AR)

The American people simply need more time to debate and read through this version of the bill. It’s even longer than the House version  (2,074 pages) and does not protect life. National Right to Life exclaimed that the Reid bill is “unacceptable:”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs.

According to Patient’s First (part of Americans for Prosperity), here are just three problems with the bill. They’ve also outlined 10 more problems.

1.”The Reid bill starts hiking taxes and cutting Medicare immediately, while the new spending programs are delayed until January 2014…Without this gimmick, the fully phased in 10-year cost would be not the much-touted $848 billion is about $2.5 trillion.”

2.”The Reid bill pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 23 percent in 2011 and stay at that low level. That’s totally dishonest, because it would drive most doctors out of Medicare. That raises the real price-tag of the bill another $247 billion.”

3.”The bill includes yet another new entitlement program, a long-term care insurance program called the CLASS Act. This new federal entitlement program will supposedly reduce the deficit. That’s because the CBO counts the program’s 10-year revenues of $72 billion as deficit reduction to help pay for the Reid bill, even though it will cost far more than it raises once benefits start being collected in the future. This is another new entitlement time-bomb, when Social Security and Medicare already have staggering multi-trillion dollar unfunded liabilities.”

Tennesseans, wondering how our senators feel? Thankfully, both issued strong statements against it.

Alexander:

Senator Reid’s bill is appropriate for the season: it’s the same turkey you didn’t like in August, and it’s not going to taste any better on Thanksgiving. Not much has changed. The bill still means higher premiums, it still means higher taxes, and it still cuts Medicare. It’s still 2,000 pages, and it still costs more than $2 trillion when fully implemented — and that doesn’t take into account a quarter-trillion-dollar doctors’ Medicare reimbursement. And it still sends struggling states new Medicaid costs that will force states to raise taxes or damage higher education or both.

Corker:

“Like most Americans, I want to see responsible health care reform, but paying for it by sending an unfunded mandate to states, taking money from Medicare – which is already insolvent – to fund a new federal entitlement, and passing off costs to future generations does not pass the common sense test,” said Corker. “I actually thought Sen. Reid would try to put something forth that was more sensible, but from what I’ve seen of the 2,074 page bill thus far, it looks even more sinister. This is taking the debate and our country in exactly the wrong direction. We’re literally spending our future away.