We are approaching the eleventh hour for Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) slowly dying health care legislation, which he insists will be passed before Christmas. This is the same bill that was to be enacted last summer, then by August, then after Labor Day, and then before Thanksgiving. Now it may be a Christmas present for the country.The senators gave good information and offered sharp criticism of the bill. What I had not expected was to discover that, well … there is no bill.
What about the 2,074-page document we’ve been reading about that purports to be health care legislation? Oh, they replied, that bill was pulled by Reid more than a week ago along with the public option, which is now dead.
So Mr. Reid has no bill for senators or the public to read. No one knows what will be in the new bill. And the new, concealed bill still has to be “scored” by the Congressional Budget Office before the Senate can debate it and before an increasingly skeptical public can make their opinion known.
But Senator Reid was vowing to keep the U.S. Senate hostage while he and his allies worked behind closed doors to craft a bill he will eventually unveil to the public. He says he will give the senators 72 hours to digest it before a vote. And this bill probably will exceed 2,074 pages.
So there is no plan — neither a public option nor expanded Medicare. Then what is there?
It can be anything Mr. Reid and his pals want to dream up in their private, well-appointed Capitol Hill sitting rooms.
“The irony is,” said Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond (D-MO), “the president campaigned on total transparency. … What kind of bill is this?”
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Since no one's seen the bill
It can be anything they want it to be, as it is being cooked up behind closed doors. Read at Pajamas Media:
No comments:
Post a Comment