Now that he’s not running for re-election, Congressman Bart Gordon is signaling that he may change his vote to “yes” when the proposed government takeover of health care comes back up for a vote.  Gordon and other Democrats would deny of course that the health bill is a government takeover of health care – and technically, they’re right. It’s only the next step in the government takeover of health care. He know it, and he should know that we know he knows it.

The government has already taken over health care for about one-third of the population, mostly through Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor. The Democrat health bill that will come back to Gordon and other members of Congress, retiring or not, will ensnare a large portion of the middle class, and begin the process of taking over health care for the rest of us.

Today, President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are twisting arms and making more deals, trying to get reluctant Democrats on board. Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee is one of their targets, and he is quoted as saying, "I voted against the House bill in November because it expanded coverage but did not do enough to bring down costs. I'm pleased to see the discussion moving in a more fiscally responsible direction now.”

Congressman Gordon is not running for re-election, but he is returning home, and he will have to live among those he plans to disappoint by voting for the next step in the government takeover of health care. He could move to California, I suppose, but I would think that would be an unpleasant move for someone who has lived in Murfreesboro all his life. Gordon is a Tennessean, and he lives among people who want nothing to do with Obamacare. He won’t ask for their vote again, but he will likely want their friendship in his Golden years.

Whether or not President Obama, Speaker Pelosi et al manage to accomplish their ultimate goal remains to be seen, but there is no question that they see this as an important step toward government control of health care for all.

In an interview at a health care forum with the Service Employees International Union in 2007, then Senator Obama said, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out or 20 years out.”

In 2003, Obama spoke to an AFL-CIO meeting and said, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care system.”

In July last year, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) told an interviewer, “I think if we can get a good public option, that could lead to single payer and that’s the best way to reach single payer.”

In April last year, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) told a crowd, “Next to me was a guy from an insurance company, who argued against the public health insurance option, saying, that it wouldn’t let private insurance succeed – that a public option would put private health insurance out of business and lead to single payer. As the crowd cheered, she added “and you know what, he was right. The man was right.”

Lest you think Obama and other liberal Democrats have given up on that goal because the public option is no longer in the bill, fast-forward to Monday’s Los Angeles Times story about the Obama-Pelosi tag team trying to corral wary Democrat votes to pass the Senate bill and a “reconciliation” package to make it more amenable to House members.

To Times reports: Last week, Obama summoned leaders of House Democratic liberal groups to the White House. “He told us, 'This is not the end of the road. This is the beginning,' "said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), who added that she would support the bill.

Congressman Gordon needs to hear from as many of his constituents as possible between now and March 18^th, the deadline Obama has given the House to pass the bill before he boards Air Force One and heads off on another international voyage.

It would be a shame if his last major vote in Congress is for a health care bill his constituents know is in fact a Trojan Horse for a single payer system that would eventually put the government in charge of signing the checks for everyone’s health care, thus taking control of all health care decisions, from how the cost will be distributed among the taxpayers, to what health care it will provide and what it won’t.

I don’t know if Gordon can be persuaded to care what his constituents think or want, but he needs to hear that we are acutely aware of the Democrats’ ultimate goal – that they consider this bill a major step toward that goal, and we know that he knows that.

No one is going to believe that a Bart Gordon vote for Obamacare is anything other than a vote for a health care system that will eventually mimic the socialist health care system in Europe and Canada. The message to Gordon is this. We know that you know that a vote for the health care bill before you now is a vote for socialized medicine. Cast your vote with that knowledge, and prepare to retire in the bed you make with that vote.