Universal Health Care

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Universal Health Care

Are uninsured Americans FINALLY going to join the rest of the
developed nations?

Better late than NEVER!

Now, all we have to do is figure out how to stop slaughtering
women who have the misfortune of seeking medical procedures
(including childbirth) from our "ace" health care profession.

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Deem and Pass

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

OMG!

Rep. Michele Bachmann has been on a media blitz this week trying to drum up opposition to health care reform.

In a number of these appearances, Bachmann said, incorrectly, that Congress has never before used “deem and pass.”

Never?

Pardonnez moi, mon amour!
(Oops! Slipped into my native tongue.)

For the sake of accuracy in reporting, the latest ranting over “Deem and Pass” has an historical record that is indisputable. During the years when the Republicans controlled the House, they set records for the use of such "rarely used" maneuvers. Although their bogus sanctimony shouldn’t surprise us, the utter fraudulence of these latest outbursts has been held up to deserved ridicule by impeccably nonpartisan and even conservative sources.

In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times and was no stranger to the concept of "Deem and Pass."

House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration.

On the American Enterprise Institute blog, for instance, congressional expert Norm Ornstein writes that he prefers the "regular order" and thus won’t endorse the use of a self-executing rule by the Democrats to pass health care reform. "But even so," he asks, "is there no shame anymore?"