The basic plan is Pelosi will twist arms to get the house to pass the Senate version of the bill, plus another bill representing changes to the Senate bill that the leadership of both houses have already agreed to. The Senate will then use reconciliation to pass that second bill. And the President will sign first the Senate bill and then the bill with the changes. The heath-care summit is simply a charade says Primas.
GOP Leadership in the house got wind of the Primas report (maybe they read the Lid?) and demanded that House and Senate Democrats halt their ongoing efforts to combine the two versions of Obamacare.
They sent a letter to the self-proclaimed "Most Powerful Woman in the World" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her side-kick Senate majority leader, Harry Reid saying that the efforts by Democrats to reach a compromise plan would undermine negotiations at a bipartisan summit scheduled by President Obama for Feb. 25.
The GOP letter suggested that the ongoing work by Democrats amounts to a “backroom deal among the White House and Democratic leaders” that would “make a mockery of the president’s stated desire to have a ‘bipartisan’ and ‘transparent’ dialogue.”
Republicans realize that this Health Summit is a sham and the POTUS, will follow up with pushing for immediate passage of the Pelosi/Reid revised health care bill.
The full letter (Source NY Times) is below:
February 12, 2010
The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Mr. Leader and Madam Speaker:
As you know, we welcomed the President’s call for bipartisan health care talks. The American people have made it clear that they strongly oppose the comprehensive health care bills you have passed and want them shelved in favor of a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses.
Given the President’s statement that he is “open to any ideas” at the proposed summit, it is our responsibility as congressional leaders to see that the views of our Members and our constituents will be heard in good faith. The existence of any kind of backroom deal among the White House and Democratic Leaders would certainly make a mockery of the President’s stated desire to have a “bipartisan” and “transparent” dialogue on this issue.
To that end, we were taken aback by a report in the Tuesday, February 9 edition of Politico stating that President Obama “hopes to walk into the Feb. 25 summit with an agreement in hand between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on a final Democratic bill, so they can move ahead with a reform package after the sit-down.”
We were further taken aback by a report in CongressDaily later the same day in which an aide to the Speaker, appearing at the National Health Policy Conference, described the legislative “trick” Democratic Leadership intends to use to jam through a “pre-negotiated” health care bill. It has also been reported that other congressional aides present concurred with this assessment.
Additionally, the Christian Science Monitor reported today that special interest groups are calling for Democrats to finalize a deal in advance of the proposed summit.
To ensure we can move forward in good faith, we ask that you publicly disavow these reports and assure the American people that Democratic Leadership is not putting together any kind of backroom deal or plotting any kind of legislative trickery to pass it. Your response will help clarify whether Democratic Leadership is serious about genuine bipartisan negotiations and whether the proposed summit will be a truly open forum or merely an intramural exercise.
We appreciate your immediate response in this matter and look forward to further efforts to foster bipartisan cooperation.
Sincerely,
House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH)
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)
House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN)
1 comment:
Well, right there's the problem: The last thing these two are is "honorable" so why bother addressing them as such? "The Despicable" would be far more appropriate.
But then, I haven't any aspirations to public office, so I can say what I want. For now, anyhow.
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