from Newsmax:

Republican and Democratic senators negotiating financial details of healthcare reform have made great progress and are on the verge of a deal, a key Republican senator said on Wednesday.

"We have made great progress. Every day we make some progress," Senator Charles Grassley, one of the three Republicans from Senate Finance Committee involved in the talks to overhaul the healthcare system, told NPR radio. "Will we get it done so we can get a bill to the other members by this weekend because there is a certain time you've got to give people to study it? We're on the edge, and almost there," he said in the interview.

President Barack Obama has pinpointed healthcare as his top legislative priority and has pushed lawmakers to quickly reach a deal to rein in healthcare costs, improve care and cover most of the 46 million uninsured Americans. In President Obama's rhetoric over the "crisis" in American health care, what is being hidden from the American public in the debate is the intrusive nature of the government takeover of the nation's health care system being proposed by President Obama's power-grabbing administration.

• The government will have real-time access to the finances and bank accounts of all Americans under the plan, providing for electronic funds transfers into and out of bank accounts as the government requires.
• Illegal aliens, currently estimated by the U.S. government to number in excess of 12 million people, will receive free government health insurance coverage. Moreover, all health providers will be required to provide health services in Spanish, so illegal immigrants can understand the care they are being given.
• A health choices commissioner established by the bill will audit the books of all employers who choose to self-insure under the Obama plan. If the government determines a self-insurer does not have the financial resources to cover employees, the government will force the employer to shut down their self-insurance plan.
• A panel of medical and "other experts" appointed to a Health Benefits Advisory Committee will determine what medical treatments you can get and how much the government will pay. If you or your doctor think you need a medical treatment that is outside the government's approved scheme, you are out of luck.
• The government will tell all practitioners in the health care industries, including physicians with surgical specialties, what fees can be charged and how much income they can make.
• The government will allow groups such as ACORN to sign individual Americans up for government-provided health care. In the process, ACORN will be allowed to collect a wide range of personal information, including whether the individuals being enrolled suffer from any mental disorders or cognitive impairments.
• The government will penalize hospitals that readmit patients the government considers were involved in a "preventable readmission."
• The government will set up an Advance Care Planning Consultation unit which will determine what type of "end-of-life" treatment an individual may receive. This can include rationing of health care and drugging of patients the government determines do not qualify for advanced medical services in their elderly years.
• Under the H.R. 3200 "Obamacare" plan, the government will use taxpayer funds to demand all health care providers conduct abortions.

Reading the bill, there is no aspect of medical care the government will not control with an iron hand under the Obama administration plan. If you are an unborn baby or a senior citizen, Obamacare provides you a very uncertain future. Put simply, H.R. 3200 nationalizes the health care system to the extent that government bureaucrats, rather than physicians and patients, determine health care pricing, services that are provided, services a person may receive all dictated by government from cradle to grave.

• Page 102 of H.R. 3200 forces anyone eligible for Medicaid to be enrolled in Medicaid, a provision which allows the government to require the senior citizen to expend all savings and sell all property before the person receives government health care benefits.
• Page 124 of H.R. 3200 even prevents any lawsuits from being filed against the government health care price fixing schemes permitted by the legislation.
• Page 167 of H.R. 3200 places a surtax of 2.5 percent on the gross income of any individual found by the government to be without acceptable health care. Employers pay an 8.0 percent surtax if they lack a public health care plan.
• Just to hide the likelihood that the government takeover of medical services will increase the taxes of nearly every taxpayer, H.R. 3200 has the audacity to say on page 203 that "the tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as a tax."

If Congress adjourns for the August recess before passing some form of H.R. 3200, then health care reform legislation is a dead issue for this year.