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Phydeaux -> RE: OBAMA LIED!!! (11/1/2013 3:40:22 PM)
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Continuing:
As it turned out, the actual language of House bill 4872 did not emerge from any committee. The reconciliation legislation was born from negotiations between White House officials and Democratic congressional leaders, again working outside of the traditional legislative process. Though Democrats would rely on their majorities for success, differences between party factions, especially the anti-abortion and fiscal conservative blocs, influenced what they would be able to accomplish.26
....So the House had negotiated its fix outside of the floor and committee, and now a Rules Committee resolution would bring it up to a vote.
...Under the Rules Committee’s plan, the House would first vote to concur with the Senate version of PPACA and, if that passed, would immediately move on to the House’s reconciliation package in House bill 4872 under a closed rule.273 Debate was limited to two hours, divided evenly between the parties, and there was no opportunity to make amendments.274
On the evening of March 21, 2010, the Senate version of House bill 3590 passed the House.275 Previously approved by the Senate and now by the House, the bill was enrolled for the President’s signature. House bill 4872 was passed soon afterward and was engrossed for further action by the Senate.276 Congress had now essentially passed a health care program, but the process was not yet over because the fate of House bill 4872 was still in play, even if its outcome was not in doubt.
While reconciliation was politically expedient for health care reform advocates, it presented some procedural pitfalls that had to be navigated to achieve an up or down vote. The referee over how to proceed in the Senate was that chamber’s parliamentarian, a normally obscure post which had temporarily risen in prominence thanks to the health care debate.277 On March 11, the Senate Parliamentarian had ruled that the House had to pass House bill 3590, and it had to be signed by the President into law, before the Senate could even take up the reconciliation bill. After the President signed House bill 3590 on March 23, the reconciliation bill had to negotiate several potential obstacles before passage. The first was the Byrd Rule, a procedural rule passed into law as an amendment to the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.278 Named after its leading advocate, Senator Robert C. Byrd, it was created to block use of the Senate’s expedited reconciliation process as a means to pass measures unrelated to the budget.279 If a significant enough feature of House bill 4872 could be found to be extraneous, it might doom the overall bill.
The second obstacle was the offering of amendments. Though debate was limited to twenty hours, senators could offer unlimited amendments, even after debate ended.280 The votes on these amendments, whimsically called “vote-a-rama,” are offered on a rapid basis, with proponents having a brief time to make their case for their amendment and opponents having the same amount of time to respond.281
The subsequent debate was orchestrated through mutual agreement of the parties under UCAs and took place over two days.287 The “vote-a-rama” occurred immediately afterward under a UCA that allowed one minute by a proponent to explain the amendment to be voted on and a minute by an opponent who disagreed.288 This expedited debate-and-vote ran into the afternoon of March 25. Armed with a significant majority, the Democrats were easily able to vote down each amendment.289"
It is about as true as it ever gets that this bill is a democrat bill. Created, debated, and crafted by democrats.
And and any attempts to portray republican involvement is just an excercise in blame management.
Many on the left will make the point that republicans have at one time or other supported some of the elements of the obamaplan.
Thats like saying because you like beer, the pub is yours.
This bill passed without any significant republican involvement.
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