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StumbleHarry Reid, Senate begin weekend session on health care reform
Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009 | 5:04 p.m.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., center left, gets a hug by Sen. Jay Rockefeller D-W.Va, as Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., left and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, looks on after the U.S. Senate voted to begin debate on legislation for a broad health care overhaul at Capitol Hill in Washington on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009.
Sun Coverage
WASHINGTON -- History cannot be made working bankers’ hours, suggested Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as he opened a rare weekend session of the Senate on health care reform that will continue Sunday when President Barack Obama is scheduled come to the Hill to meet with Democratic senators.
Asked what Obama was expected to say when he visits with Senate Democrats on Sunday afternoon, the president’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who was at the Capitol talking with individual senators, told reporters: “Pass health care.”
Easier said than done, as the Senate continued working its way through a long list of amendments on the floor while behind closed doors Democrats met to try to break the impasse on the public option.
The first snow fell on the capital this morning as senators made their way to the chamber for what Reid has promised will be several weekend sessions to finish the president’s top domestic policy priority by year’s end.
Reid opened the session by saying that 14,000 Americans would lose their health insurance today, just as others did Friday and as many will do on Sunday.
“The American people don’t get weekends off from this injustice,” Reid said. “Bankruptcy doesn’t keep bankers’ hours. The bills don’t go away just because it’s a Saturday; the pain doesn’t go away just because it’s a Sunday.”
The Senate worked its way through more Medicare amendments, rejecting a Republican proposal to halt $42 billion in cuts over 10 years to home health care services, 41-53. The Senate passed a Democratic amendment to establish that no home health care services would be harmed, 96-0.
The Republican opposition strategy has focused on the nearly $500 billion in proposed Medicare cuts over 10 years. Since the floor debate began Monday, Republicans have offered several amendments to halt proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage.
All have generated cross-over support from several Democrats, but failed to win the 60 votes needed for passage.
Republican motions are being offered in a way that would send the bill that the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, calls a “monstrosity,” back to committee, a strategy unlikely to win the necessary 60 votes.
“Obviously, the majority is not interested in starting over and they’re trying to ram through this 2,000-page monstrosity,” McConnell said.
Off the floor several closed-door meetings of moderate and progressive Democrats were under way as senators sought to resolve their differences over the public option – the government-run health care plan that would be offered as an option to private insurance for those without coverage.
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of the only Republicans being courted to join Democrats on the bill that her party almost uniformly opposes, emerged from a gathering of moderate Democrats to say she remains at the table. “I keep talking,” Snowe said.
Senators seemed to be focusing on hybrids for the public option that could win the support of the handful of moderate Democrats who have said they would not the support the bill as the issue is now framed. They are awaiting cost assessments from the Congressional Budget Office.
Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, who has been leading the effort to forge a compromise and was in meetings with both moderates and progressives today, said the senators shared a “willingness to think a little bit outside the box.”
“I walk out feeling more encouraged than not,” Carper said Saturday evening.
Senators will be back at work again on Sunday, taking the morning off for those who plan to attend church services. Sebelius also expects to be back on the Hill talking with senators.
Two amendments will be on the floor, including one from Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas to limit executive pay at health insurance companies and another from Republican Sen. John Ensign to provide medical malpractice reform by curtailing trial lawyer contingency fees.
Ensign delivered a speech on the floor on Saturday afternoon to introduce his amendment that is likely to draw Democratic support.
Unlike past weekend sessions of the Senate, which lend a casual-Friday feel around the place, today’s session (with the exception of a few children roaming the halls with their parents) seemed an extension of the work week that will simply blend into the next.
Democrats are clearly trying to showcase in dramatic fashion during the weekend sessions their interest in passing the legislation that has been a pursuit of their party for generations.
But Republicans are unmoved, and McConnell, the Republican leader, said if Reid was counting on opponents caving rather than giving up their weekends to come to work, he was mistaken.
“I think the majority leader believes that, somehow, if we stay in on weekends, Republicans are going to blink,” McConnell told reporters. “I can assure him we’re not.”
Republicans believe the longer the debate drags on and details of the bill are aired, the more the popular support for the legislation will erode.
“Making history is the argument, apparently, they’re using,” McConnell added. “It strikes me that the American people are saying, you make this kind of history and maybe you’ll be history.”
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Three years of harry Reid running the Senate has destroyed this state and most of the country. Now he is determined to follow Pelosi and the extremist off the cliff on health care. By January he wants to hit us with "stimulus 2".
harry Reid is determined to make sure no one can visit Las Vegas again as they will all be broke or working for the federal government. What a waste.
Why does harry Reid hate America? Is it because he sat out the Korean War as a Capitol Policeman while real Americans were bleeding in Korea?
We are tired of these old fogies. The next election ever one elected will be new. LOOSER !!
Reform...reform...REFORM...there, I said it three times - shouted it even...still doesn't make it reform...
I hate everyone named Reid and those shell shocked Vietnam vets who never realized that LBJ escalated the war and Nixon got us out. Maybe your brain is up Harry's rear end so far it peaks out his belly button.
dingo, the nurses are on their way to give you your meds.
Harry Reid is a sick old man. At 70 years old it's time to put him out to pasture. Nevada's future is at stake.
Good Old Harry cares little for Nevada. He knows his days as a Senator are coming to a close. He did figure out how to put the so called "healthcare reform" on the web for us to read. I did have the opportunity to read most of the 1,950 pages and it is a SHAMBLES to say the least. Over 450 bil in Medicare cuts, higher taxes not just on the rich but MOST of the middle class, penalties if you don't get healthcare, tax hikes on small business's so heavy that most will force you to go with the public option. I could go on and on, but it is far from a REFORM. If this is such a good healthcare program Harry, why are you and the rest of Congress not going to be using it too? I think you know the answer!!!!
There are none so blind as those who REFUSE to see. Our health care system and we are toast if gridlock ensues. The American people are caught in the vice of corporate greed of epic proportions and those fighting gainst reform must think that's just fine.
America has been "going down" for a long time. Other countries have better schools, better health care, better jobs and income protections, better child care, better retirement, better air, water and life expectancy. They're also not as fat as we are. We've been spoiled waaaaaaaaaay too long. Our lazy ways and our belief that "something will save us without Democratic Party help" are killing us. We are the country that USED to be called the greatest on earth. Used to be. Stupid is as stupid does.
Health care fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion annually.[1]
The National Institutes of Health spends $1.3 million per month to rent a lab that it cannot use.[2]
Medicare officials recently mailed $50 million in erroneous refunds to 230,000 Medicare recipients.[3]
[1]Carrie Johnson, "Medical Fraud a Growing Problem," The Washington Post, June 13, 2008, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...
/2008/06/12/AR2008061203915.html (October 5, 2009).
[2]Jonathan Rockoff, "NIH Paying $1.3 Million Monthly for Unused Lab," Baltimore Sun, December 2, 2007.
[3]David Stout, "Medicare Error Sends $50 Million in Refunds to Recipients," The New York Times, August 24, 2006, at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/
08/24/washington/24medicare.html (October 6, 2009).
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If Harry was a chef, the whole state of Nevada would have food poisoning where the legal citizens would have to wait in the emergency line behind the 10s of thousands of illegal immigrants getting free health care.
Senator Reid, the man who came to Washington proclaiming to be "Mr. Independent" has morphed into the biggest 'Insider' or 'Pol' that Washington has. He lives at the Ritz Carlton and spews Washington babble.
Go read the bill...all 2,000 pages of it. Try to figure out how it's going to reduce the $2.4 trillion America spends on healthcare. Where? How? It's not and a 3rd grader can figure that out.
It does NOT reduce costs -- the actual AMOUNT we spend on healthcare...it merely re-distributes it. That's fine if you believe in that sort of thing. Take from me to give to someone you decide should have my money.
This bill cuts programs on seniors in Medicare and Medicaid by $500 billion.
It takes from the middle class and upper income Americans, who last I looked work pretty hard and pay a lot for the healthcare they have.
It does nothing to question or rethink the "fee for services" model, which today underpins the gross overbilling and overtesting, which is a key part of the excess spending problem we have.
It doesn't touch Tort reform -- big fans of Mr. Reid.
It is old political dogma...take from someone, print money in the form of "forward year" deficits...and give out the spending today leaving the problem to be dealt with by our children in 5 to 10 years. Tell everyone it will be fine -- there is no sacrifice. It's all good. We can just make an off-year "budget adjustment" and find an extra trillion over the next decade for more healthcare for all.
Indeed, in this bill, it is notable that most of the "revenue" sources don't kick in until after the 2012 election...so Mr. Obamaa, Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi are now spending our money, paying for it with taxes and fees and having the taxes and fees kick in after the next election cycle. Wow...clever, eh?
What a sad demonstration of a government failing to do its job. Out here in the real business world, they would all be fired on the spot. But since only 5% of these people working in Washington (Harry included) have ever had a real job I guess we have to forgive the fact that they live in this special fantasy world called Washington.
History will look back on Harry Reid's hand at running this terrible bill through the Senate and it will be viewed as one of the worst "black-marks" on the history of Nevada for having ever put him there.
SCREW HEALTHCARE MR. REID ! WE WANT JOBS ! JOBS ! JOBS! GET IT STUPID?
Wow. The paid Republican news commenter trolls are out in force this weekend, spreading falsehoods and misplaced venom.
First of all, wasn't the Korean War from 1950-1953? I just googled Reid's bio, and it says that he didn't even graduate from HIGH SCHOOL until 1957. OK, so Reid should've been at war when he was 11 yrs old?
Second, the health care system in this country is screwed up. If we don't do anything, it will get even worse.
Third, the prez and REid and Congress have been working on jobs all along. Um, why don't you try reading the press on this??
Fourth, god speed Nevada, if you pick to have two Republican senators, one with no political capital due his criminal immoral behaviors and the other with the least seniority in a party that is out of power in Congress and the white house. Try reading up on the history behind the "screw Nevada" bill and what happened in South Dakota.
Boingo: His age at the time is a minor irrelevancy. See, we can borrow a page from the Leftist Playbook. Afterall, doesn't the end justify the means. The bottom line is that neither Papa Bear nor Baby Bear ever served their country in uniform. Please refute that if you can.