Committee ranking member Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) wore two pairs of glasses to read during a mark-up session on health-care reform legislation on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Cup and saucer is a metaphor used to differentiate the roles played by the House of Representatives and United States Senate.
Markup - The process by which congressional committees and subcommittees debate, amend, and rewrite proposed legislation.
Although there have already been four health care bills passed through different Senate committees, the bill that President Obama has endorsed may look very different by the time it gets out of the mark-up process in the Finance Committee. If it ever does get out. If Wednesday was any indication, Senators seem to be planning on slowly dripping provisions of Sen. Max Ba
ucus' bill on to the saucer. For those who criticize Congress often as a "Do Nothing Body," it seemed as though hot passions of the Town Halls had been replaced by the Washington (Hot) Water (for Tea) Torture treatment.The Wall Street Journal Reports:
For a sample of what’s to come, check out the committee’s legislation page, which includes a whopping 564 proposed amendments spread over three categories (”reforming the health care delivery system,” “expanding health care coverage” and the ever-popular “financing comprehensive health care reform.”)
The amendments run the gamut from “protecting doctors from frivolous lawsuits” (#178) to “providing consumers with the same health insurance options as Members of Congress” (#329). These and all the rest are spelled over hundreds of pages here, here and here.
On the whole, the amendments head in directions you’d expect: As Politco noted, Republicans want fewer new taxes, and medical liability reform; amendments from Dems would do things like strengthen health insurance co-ops and boost tax credits to low- and middle-income families.
Lest you think that these amendments are mere posturing by minor Senate figures, check out this WSJ interview with Chairman Baucus, who is himself looking to make a pretty significant changes to the bill. Specifically, Baucus may cut the tax on high-end health benefits and increase subsidies to help some families buy health insurance.
MSNBC reports on Wednesday the committee debated for 2 hours an amendment that would put the legalize of the text of the entire bill on line. Sounds like a good idea, but maybe not so much.
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Well, if you don't want to read the entire bill -- and its 564 proposed amendments -- you can have it read to you by professional voices:
Don't want to read the health care bill? How about listening to it? "Diane Havens, a voice-over actress from New Jersey, recently narrated a legal thriller by Will Nathan, “Book of Business,” and in a customer review at Audible.com, “Philip” lauded her “gripping narration.” Her latest voice-over project is also legal in nature, but decidedly slower paced: along with about 60 other voice actors, Ms. Havens volunteered to record the proposed health care bill, H.R. 3200, a 1,017-page doorstop. The reading, available free at hearthebill.org, clocks in just shy of 24 hours."
3 comments:
I wonder why Congress didn’t pursue smaller bills, passing portions of health care reform in increments over Obama’s term. Although I’m glad that they’re pursuing large scale reform of our poor health care system, it seems that a more spread out process fits in more with Congress’s usual pattern of business.
I think we need to have more sweeping reforms in this area, as opposed to the current trend of earmarks and compromises and needless complexity. I mean an opt-out option for states on things like healthcare is unbelievable. I'm glad the Civil Rights Act didn't have an opt-out option.
I think it is more efficient for larger bills to be passed by congress. In order to rid America of its flaws and economic recession, it is necessary to enact drastic change.
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