Saturday night’s U.S. Senate vote offers the best chance to kill ObamaCare once and for all.

Senators will decide on a “motion to proceed to consider,” a parliamentary tactic to bring measures to the Senate floor without the usual “unanimous consent.” Such a motion can be filibustered, thus requiring 60 votes to invoke cloture, end debate, and move ahead.

To reach this magic number, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) needs every Democrat, plus Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Assuming all Republicans hang together to oppose the motion, any single vote Reid loses will spell ObamaCare’s defeat in the Senate and, most likely, the whole concept’s demise for the foreseeable future.

Thus it is vital for concerned citizens to stop government medicine in its tracks. Democrats Evan Bayh of Indiana, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas all remain undecided on the motion to proceed. Lieberman seems to support it, but a groundswell of public opinion might sway him otherwise. As the late Sen. Everett Dirksen (R., Ill.) once said, “When I feel the heat, I see the light.”

Please contact these senators and urge them to defeat the motion to proceed. They might find these arguments persuasive:

* ObamaCare should be halted at once. Why wait? Opening the bill for debate just allows more time for the unforeseen to unfold. Over the next few weeks, senators could be bought off with pork-barrel projects, threatened with primary opposition, or otherwise pressured to support ObamaCare on final passage. A GOP senator might resign under a cloud, become incapacitated, or otherwise no longer be able to serve. If such a senator were replaced by a Democratic governor, that could offer ObamaCare its ultimate margin of victory. Rather than let it live to fight another day, kill ObamaCare now.

* According to a Congressional Research Service analysis conducted for the office of Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D. (R., Okla.), between the 106th and 110th Congresses, the Senate ultimately approved 41 of 40 bills that came to the floor via motions to proceed. Thus, as Coburn’s office noted, “When the Senate votes to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to a bill, that bill has a 97.6 percent chance of inevitably passing the Senate.” These are frightful odds.

* HarryCare, Senate Democrats’ version of ObamaCare, is a legislative Godzilla. It stretches to 2,074 pages. As Jeffrey Anderson of the Benjamin Rush Society observes in Friday’s New York Post, between 2014 and 2023 (its first full decade in operation) this legislation will cost $1.8 trillion in spending and $892 billion in taxes and penalties. Its loopholes allow federal abortion subsidies. Among the 18 brand-new levies Americans for Tax Reform discovered, one especially barbaric provision actually would raise taxes on the families of special-needs children!

This gigantic mess deserves defeat right now, but even if the motion to proceed passes, it’s important to put pressure on these key senators by letting them know how you feel as soon as possible. Before this crucial vote, please communicate with these open-minded senators by phone, fax, e-mail, and personal visits. A list of contact information follows. Please give them this simple message:

Down with the motion to proceed!

Sen. Evan Bayh (D., Ind.)
http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/email/
Washington, D.C.
131 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-5623, (202) 228-1377 fax
Indianapolis
1650 Market Tower 10 West Market Street Indianapolis, IN 46204 (317) 554-0750, (317) 554-0760 fax
Evansville
101 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd Evansville, IN 47708 (812) 465-6500, (812) 465-6503 fax
Fort Wayne
1300 S. Harrison St., Suite 3161 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 (260) 426-3151, (260) 420-0060 fax
Hammond
5400 Federal Plaza, Suite 3200 Hammond, IN 46320 (219) 852-2763, (219) 852-2787 fax
Jeffersonville
1201 E. 10th St., Suite 106 Jeffersonville, IN 47130 (812) 218-2317, (812) 218-2370 fax
South Bend
130 S. Main St., Suite 110 South Bend, IN 46601 (574) 236-8302, (574) 236-8319 fax
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.)
http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Washington, D.C.
328 Hart Senate Building United States Senate Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5824, (202) 224-9735 fax
New Orleans
Hale Boggs Federal Building 500 Poydras Street, Room 1005 New Orleans, LA 70130
(504) 589-2427, (504) 589-4023 fax
Baton Rouge
Room 326, Federal Building 707 Florida Street Baton Rouge, LA 70801
(225) 389-0395, (225) 389-0660 fax
Shreveport
U.S. Courthouse 300 Fannin Street, Room 2240 Shreveport, LA 71101
(318) 676-3085, (318) 676-3100 fax
Lake Charles
Capital One Tower One Lakeshore Drive, Suite 1260 Lake Charles, LA 70629
(337) 436-6650, (337) 439-3762
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Independent, Ct.)
http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm?regarding=issue
Washington, D.C.
706 Hart Office Building Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-4041, (202) 224-9750 fax
Connecticut
One Constitution Plaza, 7th Floor Hartford, CT 06103 (860) 549-8463, (800) 225-5605 in CT, (866) 317-2242 fax
Sen, Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.)
http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
Washington, D.C. 355 Dirksen Senate Building Washington, DC 20510-0404 (202) 224-4843, (202) 228-1371 fax
Little Rock
912 West Fourth Street
Little Rock, AR 72201
(501) 375-2993 or toll free 1-800-352-9364, (501) 375-7064 fax
Dumas
101 East Waterman
Dumas, AR 71693
(870) 382-1023, (870) 382-1026 fax
Community Affairs Specialist: Raymond Fraizer
Jonesboro
Federal Building
615 South Main Street, Suite 315
Jonesboro, AR 72401
(870) 910-6896, (870)910-6898
Community Affairs Specialist: Roger Fisher
Fayetteville
4 South College Avenue, Suite 205
Fayetteville, AR 72701
(479) 251-1224, (479) 251-1410 fax
Community Affairs Specialist: John Hicks
Texarkana
Miller County Courthouse
400 Laurel Street, Suite 101
Texarkana, AR 71854
(870) 774-3106, (870) 774-7627 fax
Community Affairs Specialist: Ed French

– Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. He also is on the board of the Benjamin Rush Society, which promotes free-market health-care solutions among medical students and practitioners.