What's in the healthcare bill passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee? That's for Sen. Dodd and company to know and for you to find out. But it won't be easy:
Three weeks ago Republicans on the committee wrote Mr. Dodd "to reiterate our request for a full copy of the bill as amended, in the four-week mark-up." Mr. Dodd has refused to comply. The Senate bill that is available on the committee Web site is 790 pages long. While that is some 300 pages shorter than the House health bill, that's in part because it doesn't include nearly 200 amendments that passed when the committee redrafted the bill. Amended sections of the bill might as well be written in invisible ink.Whatever the amendments may be, we can be sure from these comments that the sum total is a god-awful mess:
The whole process was so haphazard that at one point during the committee mark-up Barbara Mikulski, the Democrat from Maryland, declared: "Giving me language on little pieces of paper on which I'm going to commit the sacred fortunes and honor of the United States for decades, this is not the way to go. We can't do this on the backs of envelopes."It's got to be an utter disaster if Sen. Mikulski is disturbed by it. You can read the self-congratulatory press release and the summary here. An incomplete version of the bill is here. (I haven't found the 790 page version mentioned above. If you can locate it please let us know and we'll link to it.)
Meanwhile, Bob Dole is calling on Obama to present his own bill. That's never going to happen.
And let it not be said that the Republicans don't have their own healthcare reform proposals. They do.
Comments welcome.
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That is the secret to Obama's claims about "My Bill"
ReplyDeleteNeither the House, nor the Senate bills are "My Bill" but those are the ones that will be voted on, and signed by him.
But he gets to claim the "That's Not In 'My Bill'", and, because we have yet to see his version, we can't tell if he is lying or not.
None of what's in "My Bill" matters, because "My Bill" is not being voted on in the House or Senate.
Isn't it amazing that the MSM insists the Right has no plan, yet I've known the Right's plan for months, since this whole debate started (this round, anyway!)
ReplyDeleteYou canme by my blog when I first started and added as a follower - to you, a belated thank you. It's grown since then. I'm linking you in my blogroll... Take care!