Posted on 08/23/2009 10:30:44 PM PDT by kingattax
Washington » Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Sunday that Democrats are proposing health care legislation that is untenable for Republicans to support and warned it would be an abuse of power if congressional leaders use a rare parliamentary tactic to force through their reform plans.
"We need to work on it together," Hatch said of health care reform on NBC's Meet the Press. "But I have to tell you, they're insisting on these, I think, legislation-killing approaches that literally Republicans cannot go along with."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the same show that Democrats are trying to seek a bipartisan bill, but if Republicans are unwilling to cooperate, Democrats may employ a parliamentary tool that would only require a simple majority of votes.
"Yes, we are considering alternatives," Schumer said, noting that, "It's looking less and less likely that, certainly, Republican leadership in House and Senate will go for a bipartisan bill."
Hatch decried the notion of using "reconciliation," which requires only 51 Senate votes to pass legislation. Including two independents, Democrats hold 60 votes in the upper body.
"That would be an abuse of the process," Hatch said.
Hatch also raised an argument -- debunked as half-true by the nonpartisan PolitiFact -- that only 15 million Americans are without health care because they can't afford or can't get coverage.
He says a total of 47 million people are without coverage -- about 15 percent of Americans -- but that most of those are either illegal immigrants, people who can afford coverage but don't sign up, and those who qualify for already-in-place government plans but haven't joined.
"We all know we need insurance reform, both Democrats and Republicans, but we're going to throw out a system that works for 85 percent of 300 million people to [cover] 15 million people that we could take care of with subsidies and approaches that would be simple," Hatch said.
PolitiFact said in a posting this week that while Hatch's numbers are "in the ballpark," they come from a "hodgepodge" of different sources and years, and they don't take into account people who might be double or triple-counted.
Hatch continued to rip Democrats for pushing reform as a way to jettison America's private health care system for a government-run program like Canada, Germany, the U.K. or France.
"Choose any one of those over ours, and I'll tell ya, you don't know what you're doing," Hatch said. "As bad as ours is in some ways, and it does need reform, I've got to tell you, it's head and shoulders over any other plan, any other government [program] in the world."
Schumer, trying to beat back on myths about the Democratic proposals, said there is no requirement in the bills for people to join a public option plan.
"It is not a mandate, it is an option," Schumer said. "If you like your insurer, you keep it. If you don't like it, you have the option of a public insurer."
Noting that a public-option plan is still very much in consideration, Schumer also blasted critics who say a government-run plan would be unfair to private insurers.
"It's like a college system in New York state, in Utah: there are public colleges, private colleges," Schumer said. "You choose the one that's best for you and competition makes both of them better."
Both Hatch and Schumer are members of the Senate Finance Committee.
Chuckie’s a liar!
That Hatch is such a conservative stud..../s
I'm warning you, GOP. If you guys get suckered in like you typically do because you're all so monumentally naive, get ready to join the ranks of the unemployed in November 2010.
“It’s like a college system in New York state, in Utah: there are public colleges, private colleges,” Schumer said. “You choose the one that’s best for you and competition makes both of them better.”
in other news: crazy college coeds gone wild. next on o’reilly
Neither insurance nor health-care are proper functions of government in general, nor Constitutional functions of the US government in particular. And using Peter’s tax money to pay Paul’s health care expenses is evil, because it makes Peter a slave and Paul a thief.
Hatch is an idiot. I swear, Republicans can’t fight a war if their lives depended on it. Let the Dems go nuclear and pass this if they want - there is no need for Hatch to continually talk about the need to work together. All this does is play into Schumer’s hands because he needs Republican dupes for cover. THE PEOPLE DO NOT WANT ANY HEALTHCARE BILL, NOT EVEN A BI-PARTISAN ONE YOU DOORKNOB!
Exactly - Schumer threatens to go nuclear because Republicans won’t agree to a “bipartisan” bill, even though the Dems have the votes and that Republicans did offer alternative proposals which were promptly ignored or shot down by the Dems.
exactamundo
I want to know if this is the same nuclear that would have been unconscionable when Republicans wanted to advise and consent to judges that weren’t supposed to need 60 votes.
KILL THE BILL. NO COMPROMISE.
Yeah. What you said.
Hatch is a fool. It is not a matter of the DemocRats not “working with us.” It’s the fact that the legislation is an abomination, unconstitutional on its face, a monument to fascist central planning of the sort that starved millions in Russia, and a rerun of approaches that have demonstrated dismal results time and again in Canada, the UK, Scandanavia... I say: let the Dems try to pass it, over the GOP’s dead body. Hatch needs to oppose them, not “work with” them.
Egad, sometimes when I watch Republican “leaders” it’s all I can do to keep my brain from exploding.
it’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. Paul is happy that Peter is robbed out of ‘fairness’ but he doesn’t get any of the money. All the money goes to Pilate.
Myth= Uncomfortable truth that RATS will lie to your face about.
With no stolen pension money too.
The "47 %" gets repeated ad nausium by the media but Hatch's lower number immediately gets challenged.
Yep. Some thing I want to know. Calling it “nuclear” seems to mean that the guys in the majority get to change the rules.
This is the part the scares me. The Democrats have shown absolutly no interest in having any input from the other side of the asile for any of the bills they have shoved through so far. What ever items they are willing to let the most liberal Republicans have a hand in adjusting, will be hung around the entire Republican party's neck when and if it is finally passed with Chucky Shummer reminding us on a daily basis that they had bi-partisan support. It's time to scrap the entire bill and start over with TORT Reform as the first bill, by itself to be introduced as the beginning of Healthcare Reform.
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