Senate gets down to healthcare debate, but will have the weekend off
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You would think that not having to work through a second consecutive weekend would make everyone in the U.S. Senate happy. Not so fast.
The Senate opened its 11th day of debate on healthcare reform to learn that lawmakers would not have to work this weekend. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told his colleagues that they were unneeded over the weekend while awaiting the Congressional Budget Office determination on the cost of the latest proposal.
“We should stay here and get the job done,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “I have never seen a process like this.”
“This is an important issue and we are prepared to be here and vote,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
There is a bit of political posturing here as Republicans use the latest twist in the healthcare saga to make their political point: that Democrats are rushing a process that the American people don’t want and that it is the GOP that is poised to work overtime.
If that sounds contradictory, it is, Democrats argued. You can’t have it both ways by saying you are working hard on a process that you are trying to slow down, Democrats said.
Republicans have maintained throughout the debate that they have been effectively shut out of writing the healthcare bill. They have professed even greater outrage since the news that Democrats have negotiated a compromise on the public option provisions and have been briefed in their caucus on the deal.
Republicans said they had yet to see the details.
Making law is generally the province of the majority, acknowledged Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) one of the floor managers for the healthcare bill. He said the GOP had been consulted throughout the process but has refused to get seriously involved with the bill that they are trying to stop.
‘Some of the debate on the other side of the aisle is surreal,” said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), another floor manager.
After getting the politics out of the way, the Senate settled in to debating some of the tax provisions of the bill.
-- Michael Muskal
