Senate Republicans use tricks to stall health care reform fixes
NOW THAT THE health care reform bill has passed both houses of Congress and been signed into law by President Obama, Republican senators have one last chance to try to stall the bill. And they have vowed to use every trick, scheme, and procedural block they can come up with to do exactly that.
When they passed health care reform Sunday night, the House also passed a bill that fixes a few flaws in the original Senate bill. Now the Senate must approve those fixes through a process called reconciliation.
Reconciliation only requires a simple majority of 51 senators, so there really is no way Republicans can stop the 59 Democratic senators from passing this bill. But they can make the process difficult, and that is what they have vowed to do.
Rules of reconciliation allow senators to try to add an unlimited number of amendments. The amendments do not have to have anything to do with health care. So you can expect that as soon as this afternoon, Republicans will be proposing dozens of amendments to try to force a change in the bill or make Democrats vote against positions they would normally support.
If an amendment passes, the process begins again in the House, so Democratic senators will be voting NO on every Republican amendment, regardless of what is in it. They have to, in order to keep health care reform moving forward.
Just keep in mind that during this process, a NO vote to an amendment is a YES vote to health care reform... and vice versa.
In November, if you hear a Republican ad say something like, “Ask Senator Blue why he voted against a bill supporting our troops,” for example, remember that in this crucial week, a NO to any amendment is a YES to health care reform.
Don’t be fooled.
Another trick GOP senators plan to use is to end these hearings at 2 p.m. every day. A Senate rule states that hearings can’t be held after 2 p.m. without consent of all senators present. At the start of every business day, the Senate generally waives this rule so they can work as late as needed. But this week Senate Republicans are objecting, cutting their work day off at 2 p.m.
Working half-days will slow down the process and could keep the Senate in session past March 29, when it is scheduled to take a recess. But in the long run it is futile. We need to let our Republican Senators know that our tax dollars pay them for a full day’s work, and that’s what we expect from them.
On the AFL-CIO blog, Mike Hall compared these tactics to a child saying, “I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue” in order to get his or her way. That doesn’t work on parents, and it won’t work on Senate Democrats.
