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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

OMG!! Senate Obamacare Provision Says Parts of It CAN'T BE CANCELED Without "Super Majority"

Many opponents of Obamacare have been saying it doesn't matter if it gets passed, if the GOP takes over in 2010  they will repeal it. Sorry that will not be possible. The bill making its way through the  Senate includes a clause that requires a two-thirds vote to amend or repeal certain sections of the bill. Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid's amendment (page 1020)
(A) IN GENERAL.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, or amendment, pursuant to this subsection or conference report thereon, that fails to satisfy the requirements of subparagraphs (A)(i) and (C) of sub4section (c)(2).
‘‘(B) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE BOARD RECOMMENDATIONS IN OTHER LEGISLATION.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report (other than pursuant to this section) that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the Board if that change would fail to satisfy the requirements of subparagraphs (A)(i) and (C) of subsection (c)(2).
 ‘‘(C) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THIS SUBSECTION.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.
‘‘(D) WAIVER.—This paragraph may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.
That particular subsection is the one that applies to deals with regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards. The boards' official purpose to "reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending," in other words outline which medical procedures are OK. Of course the Progressives will say but they will not ration and they may be right.
Remember the President's famous analogy of the colored pills?
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?"
The problem is if there are ten percent of the people who can only be cured by the red pill, those advisory boards will tell doctors they can use it anyway, or will discourage the Pharma companies from making the red pill, or new life saving procedures, tests, etc.  That is not "rationing" but it is still putting our lives in grave danger.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) pointed out this clause on the floor of the Senate Monday night (See Video Below)
...There's one provision that I found particularly troubling and it's under section c, titled "limitations on changes to this subsection."
and I quote -- "it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

This is not legislation. It's not law. this is a rule change. It's a pretty big deal. we will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule. That makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.

I'm not even sure that it's constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a Senate rule. I don't see why the majority party wouldn't put this in every bill. if you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future Senates.

I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future Congresses.


Not only is this limitation unacceptable because it prevents changes to the present health care bill, but it sets a scary precedent for the future. As my "more reasonable than I" friend Ed Morrissey of Hot Air points out in his post this morning,
"The elected representatives of today should not have greater authority than those who will follow them. Any attempt to pass this into legislation aggrandizes the power of this Congress at the expense of those that follow.
This is very frightening, but right on with the President's Agenda, he is trying to force permanent change down the throats of the American people. And the Senate leadership is trying to help anyway it can.

Ed Morrissey Has More Here

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