Rumors of Sneaking Senate’s Healthcare into Another Bill

Posted on October 13, 2009

-By Warner Todd Huston

Colin Hanna of Let Freedom Ring joined Neil Cavuto on his Fox News show earlier this week to talk of his new effort, wethepeoplecanread.com. This effort is echoing that being made by Representatives like Joe Wilson and his comrades in trying to get a 72 hour period where the healthcare bill will be posted online for everyone to read before Congress gets to vote on it.

Hanna told Cavuto that there is news that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to sneak the Senate’s healthcare proposals in as an amendment to an unrelated House tax bill so that it will bypass the debating process.

Reports are that Reid plans to attach the Senate’s entire healthcare bill as an amendment to H.R. 1586, a bill passed by the House back in March that imposes a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid to employees of certain bailed-out financial institutions.

Under the procedure, the substance of House Resolution 1586 would be removed and replaced with the entire Senate health care package. The maneuver would initially require the support of 60 senators to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 1586 (i.e., end debate on the congressional procedure and move forward).

Reid appears to want to eliminate any actual debate on top of the fact that no one can read the bill before a vote.