The Grinch Who Stole Christmas from the US Senators

Just after midnight this morning, Harry Reid, US Senate Majority Leader, achieved a 60-40 vote strictly along party lines (including two Independent members of the Democratic Caucus) to keep the most recent version of the Senate Health Care Reform bill moving toward a projected Christmas Eve vote on passage of the bill. He kept the Senate in session all weekend during the worst December snowstorm on record in Washington, DC. He was even able to get 92 year old Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) through the frozen streets to the Senate Chamber at midnight.

During the Presidential campaign last year, candidate Barack Obama promised a "transparent" Administration that would seek bi-partisan Congressional action after pending legislation was posted on-line for at least 72 hours. Since the Health Care Reform bill is constantly changing as various deals are struck with Democratic Senators willing to compromise their values for Reid's agreement to provide more federal financial assistance to the voters of their states (see news about Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska for the last such deal), no bill to be voted on has remained the same for 72 hours, let alone be available to be read on-line for that long.

By the time the Senate received the latest endorsement from the American Medical Association today (which for some reason continues to support every variation of the bill), the AMA endorsement applied to the prior version of the bill! The version of the bill that the AMA recently supported may not have included the Manager's Amendment that Harry Reid sent to the Congressional Budget Office which deleted "provisions that would increase payment rates for physicians under Medicare", according to the CBO's analysis dated December 19, 2009.

Candidate Obama also promised that Americans would be able watch consideration of important issues on C-Span. Unfortunately, he failed to warn us that those debates and votes would be on C-Span live after midnight during Christmas week and on Christmas Eve when we would otherwise be gathering with friends and family for the holidays. Imagine how the families of the US Senators feel about old Grinch Reid and his White House team of enablers!

Why is there such a rush to push a major change in our health care system through the Senate before the holidays? Why not wait until next year and weigh more carefully the implications of the constantly evolving versions of the legislation? Could the rush to pass the bill be due to public polls that continue to show a constant decline in support for the reform being considered? If that is true, Harry the Grinch and the guys turning the screws at the White House are probably afraid Senators will be overwhelmed by negative feedback from their constituents when they are back home during the year-end recess.

Could the rush to pass legislation that will not implement insurance reforms until 2014 be related to increases in federal revenue provided in the bill through increased payroll taxes on high income taxpayers, new taxes on high premium insurance policies and cuts in Medicare funding that would go into effect more quickly? If so, that would mean that they are rushing to raise taxes and cut Medicare years before the widely praised health care reforms even become effective. With the goalposts of this ever-changing bill moving almost by the hour, it is difficult for ordinary citizens to know what is going on in the dead of night in the Capitol. Do the Senators really know?

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