The health care bill that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee this week will not pass the Senate in its current form if Democrat leadership comply with procedural rules, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told conservative bloggers on a conference call this morning. However, he expects the Democrats to abuse the reconciliation process to get the legislation through.
Hatch’s extensive remarks were pointed and sharply critical of the Senate Democrats’ health care plan and the “shell game” he says they played in creating and passing the bill out of the Senate Finance Committee.
Democrats’ claims of bipartisanship on the basis of Sen. Olympia Snowe’s (R-ME) sole Republican vote are a “joke,” Hatch remarked, and he noted that if the opposition had worked with his party, they could have had 70 or 80 votes when the bill landed on the Senate floor. In his view, that bipartisan coalition of one may not hold together.
“I don’t know if [Sen. Snowe] is going to stick with them,” he said. But if she doesn’t, “It would be a tremendous defeat for them.”
And victory in health care is something that Hatch says is crucial for Democrats this year.
“The [Obama] administration and Democrats would be sorely hurt if they can’t pass some form of health care reform, and they’re going to put the screws to every Democrat in Congress” to see that it gets passed, Hatch said. Their motivation? A fear of losing seats in the next election if members return to their districts without a victory.
As to the nuts and bolts of the legislation, Hatch was outright disgusted at the sheer cost of the legislation and the Democrats’ obfuscation as to what its true cost will be.
We’re being asked to increase the deficit by another $250 billion, at a time when Democrats have already tripled our deficit to $1.4 trillion … Now they’re asking us to raise the debt ceiling. When is this spending madness going to stop?
Hatch believes the Democrats have no idea what impact the Baucus bill will have over the long term, that the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) admits he has no idea what the impact on health care premiums will be, and that the process is moving too fast for the CBO to accurately peg the costs of the plan. Hatch says that the American people deserve better.
“I want the full legislative bill, with the full and final score, to be available to every American,” he said, because the reforms affect every American and every business. “They’ve promised a new era of open government; it’s time they live up to that promise.”
As to other problems with the bill, Hatch believes a public option ultimately will be included in the final bill, but the form it will take remains up in the air. He also sees the question of abortion funding as being unresolved. Questions remain regarding the application of the Hyde Amendment, a limitation that bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, which must be renewed annually in order for the ban to remain in effect.
What message should grassroots conservatives take to the streets to halt the Democrats’ health care plans?
They should be emphasizing too much spending … It’s too much spending, too much government, too much taxes, and no way to pay for it.
Leaders in the House and Senate have a secret plan to pass President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care plan without a conference and without any participation by the American people … but that plan that has been pushed to Plan B. The primary plan is to use a secretive conference committee procedure to pass Obamacare by the end of the year.
Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee passed the outline of a bill, The Vapor Bill, out of committee on a party line vote with the lone crossover Republican support of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) on a 14-9 vote. AP is reporting that Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to commence debate the last week of October on his version of health care reform.
The plan being implemented right now to pass Obamacare is the following. The Senate will start debate on October 26th on a bill being written right now. The American people will not be allowed to view the writing of this bill and the negotiations between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Senator Max Baucus (D-MT). Human Events reported that the bill was being written before the Senate Finance Committee finished work on Obamacare and that President Obama’s head of the Office of Management and Budget has been present during the drafting of the legislation. .
In these closed door meetings, the negotiators will not be constrained by the bill that passed the Senate HELP Committee and the Senate Finance Committee legislation. This process is not transparent and Senator Orrin Hatch complained that “the real bill is currently being written behind closed doors in the dark corners of the Capitol and the White House.” Bottom line is that the American people will not be allowed to read the bill, until the elite negotiators decide to allow the American people to view it.
It is expected that the Senate will still move to a House passed tax bill and offer a complete substitute Amendment being the Obamacare bill being written right now somewhere in the Capitol. There is no way to know if Senator Reid will use his powers as leader to block amendments or to block the open amendment procedure to only allow leadership approved amendments to receive a vote. It is expected to be a long debate on the Senate floor and it may last well right up to the Senate recess for Thanksgiving.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is aiming to bring the House version of Obamacare to the floor “later this month.” After the House and Senate pass a bill, if they both pass a bill, the leadership is talking about conferencing the two bills. A conference committee will be another opportunity for the White House, Senate Leadership and House Leadership to craft a bill reconciling the two versions. Also, this would give the leadership the opportunity to kick out Republicans, as they did on the stimulus plan, and craft a bill inserting controversial provisions that don’t make it into the House and Senate plans. It is possible to add a controversial Public Option for health insurance in a conference, therefore bypassing some very painful votes on the Senate and House floor.
There are serious problems with this plan. First, after the experience that Republicans had with the Obama Stimulus plan, why would Senators allow this bill to go to conference? In the Senate, it takes 3 debatable (therefore filibusterable) motions to get the Senate to appoint conferees. Usually these motions are waived by unanimous consent, but one Senator could block conferees by objecting to an agreement. Both Republicans and Democrats have objected to conferees in the past on controversial measures to prevent a conference.
If they can’t get this risky plan implemented on schedule, they are still in a position to use Congress’ Secret Plan to pass Obamacare without a conference. The Senate Leadership has put this bill in a position that the House could take up the bill intact, pass and send to the President. CNS News reported that there is evidence in the House and Senate that Plan B is still available if the current publicly disclosed strategy breaks down.
Spokesman for Senator Harry Reid told Chris Frates of Politico that there is no single bullet scenario. “Don’t waste your time thinking about that idea anymore. What we will end up doing will be much more painful and prolonged,” said Ried spokesman Jim Manley. The big question for America is what they do if conservatives block the appointment of conferees or if the bill implodes on the Senate or House floor.