Democrats Hold Secret Meetings On Health Care
During President Obama’s campaign for the presidency in August, 2008, he made this statement: “I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) apparently didn’t hear Obama promise to have open, televised discussions about health care reform. Instead, they are meeting in secret conferences and excluding Republicans from any input into the health care debate.
Democrats are also going to deliberately avoid the conference committee process, where Republicans and Democrats gather from the House and Senate to work out differences between the Senate and House versions of Obamacare.
Apparently, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has returned early from the holiday break to begin closed-door discussions with Senate Democrats. The goal is to ram through Obamacare without going through the normal conference committee process, which would require votes on the Senate floor and full debate with Republicans.
The tactic will be to “ping pong” Obamacare back from the House to the Senate in order to avoid as many 60-vote thresholds as possible. This allows liberal Democrats to exclude Republicans and moderate Democrats who might vote against nationalizing health care.
Reid and Pelosi want to avoid conference committee debates being shown on C-SPAN – contrary to what Obama promised during his campaign. In fact, Obama is encouraging them to hold secret meetings, according to the Associated Press. Obama wants a health care bill before the State of the Union message planned for February. Obama was apparently for transparency before he was against it.
In an “ouch” moment, this week Pelosi slammed Obama. On Obama’s promise of transparency during the campaign, Nancy Pelosi stated that “There were a number of things he was for on the campaign trail” – inferring that he’s not necessarily for transparency now.
Apparently, the Senate Democrats think the American people are stupid. Majority Leader Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley has claimed that “The drafting of this health insurance reform bill has set new standards for transparency,” a laughable statement.
Why the big rush? The Democrats are desperate to get off the health care issue. They have finally figured out that their message is way off and know that health care reform is a big loser with the majority of Americans. They’re fearful of major losses in November because of voter outrage against Obamacare. They should be.
Obamacare provided unprecedented funding of abortion on demand – paid for with taxpayer dollars. This outrage cannot be permitted to stand.
The latest polls show that the majority of Americans oppose Obamacare. A Rasmussen poll after Reid’s Christmas Eve vote, shows that Americans oppose Obamacare by 58% to 39%. Only 24% think the quality of care will get better under Obamacare; 54% think it will get worse – a 30% gap. Only 13% think the cost of health care will go down under Obamacare; 63% think it will get worse – a 50% gap.
Yet, Reid and Pelosi continue to ram this nationalized health care plan down the throats of every American. This isn’t democracy; it’s tyranny.
TAKE ACTION: Your U.S. Representative and two Senators must know that you oppose Obamacare – in whatever form it takes. No current plan by the Democrats is a good one. Both the House and Senate versions will nationalize health care, raise health care costs, reduce the quality of care, and raise taxes.
