I hope it didn’t cost the American people overtime rates for our lawmakers in the U.S. House to work late on Saturday to pass a Health Care Reform package. I cannot remember the last time lawmakers in either the House or the Senate worked late on a Saturday night, and I have to say I was mystified why Speaker Pelosi would have the House work late this weekend to pass a law that will sit on the Senate’s doorstep for at least a month, maybe more.
This has been the hardest part of the Health Care Reform debate for me to keep up with, the timing. I have yet to really get my arms around it. For the most important and historic legislation to be proposed in a generation, the timing of this whole thing has been very weird.
Let’s go back to the beginning. The entire proposal was supposed to get out of the Senate Finance Committee in time for everything to be voted and approved before the August recess. When conservative Democrats balked in committee, the process stalled and lawmakers got an earful when they went back home in August.
After a month of tumultuous town hall meetings, lawmakers went back to work, but not before the entire nation heard from President Obama as he addressed a joint session of Congress and laid out what he expected to see in a Health Care Reform package. That was September.
Later in September, things went back and forth over the public option. The option died, then was brought back to life, then it died again, and now it lives, but only in the House. At this point characters in cheesy soap operas think the many lives of the public option are getting ridiculous.
So then, last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces that she has the votes to pass an historic, 1,990 page heath care reform package. Twelve days later, Speaker Pelosi votes to pass this historic legislation, sending it to the Senate.
If the House only needed 12 days, then the Senate will obviously want to take action on it this week, next week at the latest, right?
No.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the Senate would likely be able to pass something before the end of the year, maybe. And it will likely look very different than the current House proposal.
I guess all I am looking for, and I imagine in vain, is a little consistency. If one leader thinks it’s urgent, then why doesn’t everyone else agree? If the issue is so important that it must be taken slowly, why are some leaders passing 2,000 page legislation packages in less than two weeks?
Maybe I’m the one being too hasty. The last time legislation this important and this voluminous was passed this quickly was TARP, The Economic Stimulus Package, and the Patriot Act, and those all turned out to problem free, so why should I worry?
Well, if something does get passed soon, I hope it covers antacids. I have a feeling folks on both sides of the aisle will need them in bulk.