What issue demands our immediate attention?  Google the news with the last names of Virginia’s top three leaders:  webb warner kaine.  What issue rises to the top? 

U.S. Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner joined the 60-39 party-line Democratic majority that voted on Christmas Eve to move health-care reform forward in the Senate. Neither seemed to be jumping-up-and-down happy about it.

“I voted today in favor of health care reform legislation in the Senate. I did so despite my disappointment with some sections of the bill, which I will continue to address in the future. But the final package presented by the Majority Leader reflects many improvements that take into consideration the concerns that I and others brought forward during the debate,” Webb said in a statement to the media on Christmas Eve.

“While this legislation is far from perfect, I believe it will start to curb soaring health-care costs for consumers and businesses, reduce our federal budget deficits over time, and extend the life of the Medicare program,” Warner said in his Christmas Eve statement. (continued here)

Among mankind, objectivity is an almost nonexistent quality.  If we have any vested interest at all in a matter, then our opinion is suspect.  Thus, in a republic, it is incumbent upon each citizen to carefully explore each significant issue.  Then we must root out our own personal biases and do what is right.  One way to do that is to examine the opinions of our neighbors.  How do they perceive the issue?   

• In A Portent Of Things To Come, From On High notes a problem with the Health Care Bill.  
  

  The ObamaCare proposal that was recently passed by the United States Senate (with votes of yea from both Senators Webb and Warner here in Virginia) has as its cornerstone a savings plan that involves the reduction – to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars – in Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. Fees for service are to be drastically slashed.

  Yet Medicare program’s payments are already so low that major medical providers have already begun to stop accepting patients.

• In Great LTE for Sen. Webb and Warner, Augusta Conservative echos a Letter to the Editor that sarcastically takes Senators Webb and Warner to task.   
  

  The Letter to the Editor is open ended to our U.S. Senators, the question is, “Where is our sweetheart deal?” I agree, where is our ridiculous sweetheart deal? If the Health Care Reform Bill were so great and would open all these doors for people to obtain Health Care insurance than why all the outright ridiculous bribery to get Senators to vote for it?

• Both Now At the Podium (Obenshain Says Warner, Webb Owe Virginians an Apology) and United Conservatives of Virginia (We Don’t Want An Apology-Go Away)  repeat the scathing words of State Senator Obenshain (see Webb and Warner owe Virginia an apology).
• The Virginia Tea Party Patriots (Opponents of health care bill hold tea party rally at Webb’s Roanoke office) and the Roanoketeaparty’s Channel (Roanoke Tea Party: 1-6-10) describe a rally at Senator Webb’s Office against the Health Care Bill.  This rally garnered television coverage.

On Virginia’s blogs, advocates for what the House and Senate have approved as Health Care reform seem oddly silent.