As Democrats slow the nation’s business in order to grandstand on the Senate floor, it’s important to remember that they are bemoaning a process that they used themselves when they rammed through ObamaCare
June 20, 2017
FLASHBACK: Senate Dems Penned Health Care Takeover Behind Closed Doors
As Democrats slow the nation’s business in order to grandstand on the Senate floor, it’s important to remember that they are bemoaning a process that they used themselves when they rammed through ObamaCare.
Despite the disastrous effects of ObamaCare, which has caused premiums to skyrocket an average of 105 percent since 2013 and insurers to leave the marketplace, Democrats were not transparent at all when they crafted this legislation that has hurt millions of Americans.
Back in 2009, The Washington Post reported that Senate Dems were writing the legislation “behind closed doors,” and later said that negotiations between their caucus were “taking place in private.”
Then, in December 2009, Majority Leader Reid scrapped the bill that had been publicly debated and drafted new legislation in “an invitation-only back room,” that was passed by the Senate only days later. The Wall Street Journal chronicled the affair in an editorial earlier this week:
“On Dec. 19, 2009, a Saturday, then Majority Leader Harry Reid tossed the 2,100-page bill the Senate had spent that fall debating and offered a new bill drafted in an invitation-only back room. Democrats didn’t even pretend to care what was in it while passing it in the dead of night on Dec. 24, amid a snowstorm, in the first Christmas Eve vote since 1895.”
For Senate Democrats to complain now that the process isn’t transparent enough is the very definition of “crocodile tears.” They forced ObamaCare on the American people using all sorts of backroom-deals and then jammed it down the Senate’s throat through the reconciliation process. The result was bad legislation that led to higher costs and fewer choices for the American people.
Rather than hypocritically trying to score political points against Republicans, Senate Democrats should admit that ObamaCare was a massive failure and offer to work on fixing this legislation. Unsurprisingly, that is not the course they took and instead, they immediately refused to be a part of any replacement plan.