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This Week in Washington-Courtesy of Office of the Republican Whip Eric Cantor

 

All the action turned to the House on Thursday as House Democrats proposed their “final” health care legislation, H.R. 3952, on the West Steps of the Capitol.  Despite all the hoopla, H.R. 3952 is still a flawed bill. This bill is still just as harmful to small business, just as expensive and just as harmful to seniors as H.R. 3200.

Interestingly enough, the public was not allowed to be at the press conference the Democrats held on the Capitol steps to unveil the bill.  Watch this video to see people being turned away by the Capitol Police under Speaker Pelosi’s orders.  So much for transparency and the public’s right to know.  So just to be clear, the public option was proposed on public property but the public was not allowed to be there.  More on the Speaker turning away people who were not on “the list” here.

Republican Whip Eric Cantor has put together a top 10 list of why this bill is still bad medicine. Some of the lowlights include: new taxes on payroll and health savings accounts, new taxes and mandates on small businesses, the authorization of government funded abortions, and a complete disregard of medical liability reform.

But wait, there’s more. Despite the Democrat’s claims that the bill is revenue neutral and costs less than $900 billion, CBO’s preliminary analysis shows that the bill’s actual costs are over $1 trillion. The Democrats also contend that the legislation cuts the deficit by about $30 billion in the first 10 years. Huh? That must be the “new” math. Only in Washington, DC can you spend $1 trillion and say you are saving money.

The House Republican Conference is out with two handy documents. A summary of key provisions in the bill and a reading guide of some of the most “interesting” pages in the 1,990 page bill. See GOP reaction to the unveiling here and a document highlighting key tax issues here.

  The schedule for debate is still a little fuzzy, but we do have an idea of what next week will look like. The Democrats have promised 72 hours to review the bill and another 72 hours to review their final changes to the “Manager’s Amendment.”  Not much time to review a 1,990 page bill, but certainly more time than we had on their Cap & Trade bill earlier this year. Assuming things go as planned, the Democrats Health Care Bill will be on the House floor for debate as early as Thursday, November 5th, but more than likely it would be voted on Friday and possibly into Saturday. If they still don’t have the votes, the vote could be rolled to the following Monday or Tuesday.

Jeff J. Burton
Office of the Republican Whip
Rep. Eric Cantor
202-225-0197
www.republicanwhip.house.gov

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