Thread: Senate must fix House’s botch of a health bill SDUT

San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial

A recipe for ruin

Senate must fix House’s botch of a health bill

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

The deliberative process that led to the House’s 220-215 adoption of a nearly 2,000-page bill overhauling the U.S. health care system was a disgrace. Not only did Speaker Nancy Pelosi block hearings on many key elements of the bill, she broke her promise to post the full measure online for 72 hours before the vote.

But even if Pelosi had kept her word, that wouldn’t have changed the ultimate outcome. The speaker and the great majority of House Democracts – including Reps. Susan Davis of San Diego and Bob Filner of Chula Vista – simply didn’t care that a bill with a 10-year, $1.2 trillion price tag was rife with unexamined problems. It was time to make history, according to these Democrats’ talking points, so they did.

Now it is up to responsible moderate Democrats in the Senate, starting with California’s Dianne Feinstein, to clean up the House’s enormous mess.

They must challenge the folly of pretending a vast expansion of the government’s role in health care can largely be funded by vague promises of future cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. They must push for an honest debate about how allowing companies to choose a government-run “public optionâ€

I used to think the House seemed to have a lot of sanity (more than the Senate) on some bills, and the Senate more than the House on others.
It has come to seem that neither have that quality.
I don't like what they do behind closed doors (like Reid, who has a healthcare bill sitting around for a week, waiting for a CBO estimate of cost, probably 1,000 pages plus) and instead of introducing it or posting it for the American people, I will bet Reid will bring this to the floor and demand for cloture and a vote the next morning. And the hell with what the American people should know. The attitude is pay for it and live with it as we of the government know better.
I am beginning to think the liberals and conservatives are both getting more than fed up. And what is laughable is that we want to bring democracy to the rest of the world.