Slaughter Solution: Another Cheap Health Care Trick

Just when we think that Congress could not possibly sink any lower, they astonish us with their ingenuity in circumventing the laws governing them and the Constitution. Now it is being suggested that the House use the “Slaughter Solution” to pass the health care bill.

This bill is already tainted with backroom deals and threats of using reconciliation. Now they seek to provide a method that will allow House members to pass this unwanted bill without going on record as voting for it. If any member is so ashamed to vote for this bill that they don’t want their name associated with its passage, he or she should vote against it.

The Slaughter Solution was devised by Representative Louise Slaughter, the House Rules chairman. Its purpose is to avoid a recorded vote on health care. This rules change would declare that the House “deems” the Senate version of health care to have been passed by the House. Members of the House would then vote on whether to accept the new rule. There would be no real vote on the bill. This would allow members of the House to go home and claim that they only voted for the rules change and not the actual health care bill.

This is nothing but another cheap lawyers trick. If you vote for the rules change, you DO VOTE for the health care bill. You are merely parsing words. If you vote for this government take-over of health care have the guts to say “I voted for this bill”. Your unwillingness to do this proves that you know how bad this bill is and how much the American public is opposed to it.

Listen to your constituents. Scrap this bill; start over; and do it right!

Signed,
The Electorate

Washington is Still Trying to Push Health Care Down Our Throats

The Administration is crafting a combined health care bill. They state that they will attach this health care bill to a budget bill and use reconciliation to pass the bill in the Senate. They seek to do this since they do not have enough votes to pass this bill any other way. The ends justify the means in their minds. If this is the only way to pass the bill, it should NOT be passed.

Reconciliation is a parliamentary trick – a lawyer’s trick – which allows a bill to pass the Senate with a simple vote of 51. You can not legally create a new all-encompassing program by reconciliation. Reconciliation allows for no debate in the Senate. There will be no cloture vote. It circumvents the intent, if not the letter of the law. Reconciliation is only allowed for budgetary bills. Attaching a health care bill to a budget bill does not make health care a budgetary bill. This would just be another end run around our laws and Constitution.

Health insurance reform can not be passed by reconciliation. No doubt Congress will do this at a latter date. No one would vote against preventing people from being excluded from obtaining insurance because of a pre-existing condition. The new humongous, powerful government health care system would already be enacted. That seems to be what is really important in Washington – not the good or opinions of the people.

If Congress circumvents the will of the people using a cheap trick like reconciliation, the repercussions will be horrific. The people will not tolerate this misuse of power. All and any power that the federal government has comes from the people – not the other way around. If our legislators are unable or unwilling to represent us, we will replace them with legislators who will. November is just over the horizon. If this bill is passed, it can be replaced or can languish unfunded. We want sane, logical health care reform not a large, expensive health care program run by the government.

Signed,
The Electorate