Politicians are pieces of shit, the sun is yellow, and the GODDAMN PEN IS BLUE
I see two options. One, there is no plan, or it's effectively the same legislation and they don't want to admit that they don't have a replacement option, and two, it's just as long, just as complex, and just as ineffective at addressing the single biggest issue facing Americans - the rising cost of the price of the delivery of healthcare.
3/9/2010-
By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It has been said well and famously that politicians only really commit a gaffe when they tell the truth without meaning to. Add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list.
Speaking Tuesday to the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, Pelosi began the windup of her healthcare pitch by alluding to the controversies over the healthcare bill and the process by which it has reached its current state. Then, just after saying, "It's going to be very, very exciting," Pelosi gaffed, telling the local elected officials assembled that Congress "[has] to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it, away from the fog of controversy."
This is the same Nancy Pelosi who, only weeks earlier, was bragging about the transparency of the process that produced the bill that is currently stalled in Congress. The same Pelosi who brushed aside concerns raised by organizations like Let Freedom Ring!--where I am a senior fellow--that members of Congress actually commit to reading the bill before voting for it and that it be posted online for at least 72 hours before any vote so that the American people can read it, too.
In fact, as supporters of the current healthcare bill will no doubt point out, the bill Pelosi and the White House are trying to move to the president's desk passed the Senate at Christmas.
It has been on the Web for well over 72 hours; indeed it has been discussed and dissected by healthcare policy experts repeatedly over the last two months. But if that is the case, why is Pelosi telling the National Association of Counties that the bill has to pass before they--and the rest of us "can find out what's in it." What is she hiding?
3/2/2017-
Sen. Rand Paul tried unsuccessfully to wrest a draft of the House GOP's Obamacare bill from a secure room in the Capitol on Thursday, an escalation of his opposition to the party's health care plans.
The bill had apparently been moved from the room, which was guarded by Capitol Police — or was never there at all — by the time Paul got there. But his decision to stomp over to the House side with dozens of reporters in tow, highlighted conservatives’ concerns about an opaque process as the GOP races to repeal Obamacare.
The conservative senator from Kentucky went into a House hideaway in the Capitol, claimed he was told he could not remove the bill and make it public, and then held an impromptu news conference, complaining about House Republicans' lack of transparency.
“If you recall where Obamacare was passed in 2009, 2010, Nancy Pelosi said we’ll know what’s in it after we pass it. The Republican Party shouldn’t act in the same way," Paul said in a circus-like atmosphere outside the offices of House leaders. “This is being presented as if it were a national secret, as it if it were a plot to invade another country. … That's wrong. It should be done openly in the public. And conservatives who have objections that don't want Obamacare-lite should be able to see the bill."
Republican aides said they believed the room on the first floor of the Capitol was at one point being used for Energy and Commerce members to read the bill, but by the time Paul got there, it appeared that was no longer the case. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), a committee member, said he also was not able to read the bill and was told it was not available.
“They said that this room was a holdover room," Tonko said. “I said: 'Where’s the room number?' And they didn’t know. I want to read the bill because it’s affecting one-sixth of the economy."
Paul had an exchange with a staffer as he attempted to obtain the draft bill, which could be voted on later this month.
"I said I liked to get a copy and they said, 'no go.' She wouldn't tell us anything really," Paul said in an interview afterward. "Even if I were allowed to look at it, which it didn't look like I was, how is that democracy?"
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/rand-paul-blocked-gop-obamacare-bill-235613
