They spend so much time trying to scare people I can only assume that's what their parents did to them.
Hatch warns Democrats not to ramrod health plan
By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune
08/23/2009 11:28:39 AM MDT
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.
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