Congress to bypass normal process to pass health care legislation

I’m not certain if Republicans have ever taken this approach when trying to ram through hot-topic legislation and I really don’t care. Democrats will soon bypass normal conference procedures to pass health care legislation since normal procedures are too damn hard.

Hat tips to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and Michelle Malkin who link us to Jonathan Cohn’s exclusive report in The New Republic.

According to a pair of senior Capitol Hill staffers, one from each chamber, House and Senate Democrats are “almost certain” to negotiate informally rather than convene a formal conference committee. Doing so would allow Democrats to avoid a series of procedural steps–not least among them, a series of special motions in the Senate, each requiring a vote with full debate–that Republicans could use to stall deliberations, just as they did in November and December.

Par for the course. Formally express that you really want to work with Republicans to come to an agreement on a bipartisan approach to “fixing” health care, then walk into the conference room with your buddies and lock the door behind you.

Morrissey notes the plan …

… violates pledges made by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama during the last two elections.  They explicitly demanded an end to backroom deals made in secret; Obama himself pledged to have all of the negotiations on health-care reform televised on C-SPAN.

We know most politicians are hypocrites. We know Democrats are working towards a single payer system excluding what they refer to as the middle man who does nothing for you (health insurance companies) and replacing those private plans with their own middle man which they control … the federal government bureaucracy.

Just another symptom of the disease.

Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

2 Comments

  1. gillie28 on January 4, 2010 at 9:43 am

    Steve, you wrote, "We know most politicians are hypocrites," they're also just plain, damned liars (and I use the word in the religious and/or spiritual connotation).   A pox on both their houses!!!



  2. homosapiens on January 5, 2010 at 5:15 am

    Gillie took the words right out of my mouth. My question: How do we stop the insanity?



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