The recent health care proposal passed by the Senate and delivered to the house for their stamp of approval is a masterful deception. Buried in page after page of political jargon are things that a majority of the politicians don’t want you to know about until it becomes law.
On January 31, 2008 in a Los Angeles debate with then Presidential Hopeful, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Obama said: "That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are."
C-Span has offered to broadcast the discussions scheduled to take place for the final health care form. The head of C-Span, CEO Brian Lamb wrote to the leaders of congress December 30 urging their co-operation in allowing C-Span to broadcast , “all important negotiations including any conference committee meetings so that the American people can see and understand something that will touch the life of every American”. So far his request has been ignored.
Some of the things that concern us all can be found scattered throughout the current bill but especially in section 3043, I suggest these are a concern by the Democrat politicians that pushed them through both houses of Congress, namely Senator Harry Reid and Representative Nancy Pelosi. They appear to be hopeful the American public will not know what they are in for until it’s to late.
Here are a couple of examples:
On page #1000, section 3403 of the bill the Senate passed, we find the following:
“it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection. ”
In other words, once we got it we're stuck with it. That subsection gives the federal government exclusive power to do pretty much what ever they want, including change in benefits to older Americans, commonly known as “throwing Grand Ma under the bus“. And you can’t do a thing about it once it becomes law. The subsection at issue here concerns the regulatory power of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB) to “reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending.” That is precisely the kind of open-ended grant of regulatory power that effectively establishes the IMAB as the ultimate arbiter of the cost, quality and quantity of health care to be made available to the American people. And they want the decisions of this group of unelected federal bureaucrats to be untouchable for all time.
There was the a promise the entire bill would be published on the Internet and left up for 72 hours “for all to see“. Reid didn‘t want to publicize negotiations with Senator Landrieu of Louisiana or Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska and Bernie Sanders of Vermont in what is becoming known as the vote getting auction.
We, Americans, are expected to take their word at face value without seeing the finished product before it‘s forced on us, and if we don‘t like it, well that‘s tough, just learn to live with it .
Obama made another campaign promise that was supposed to allow voter input regarding legislation before he signed it. That promise among other promises for open government that Obama solemnly promised in order to gain the trust of the American Voter before election hasn't been the change this writer expected.
Hopefully, with pressure mounting Obama will see fit to ask Congress to allow C-SPAN cameras inside these closed door meetings that will let the Voters understand what they have sent to Washington on their behalf.
C-SPAN: Health Care Talks Should Be Televised
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