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Coburn Demands 12-Hour Reading Of Single-Payer Amendment On Senate Floor
The GOP mantra, repeated at Tea Parties all summer, was that
lawmakers and voters ought to "read the bill" in order to truly
understand the many ills of health care reform. 
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), on Wednesday, did his part to help out those who can't read legislation themselves, and asked the Senate clerk to read a single-payer amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders out loud on the Senate floor. The reading of the 767-page amendment is expected to take about 12 hours.
Watch Live on C-Span
Sanders, an independent from Vermont, first filed his amendment on December 2, so the GOP has indeed had two weeks to read it.
By jamming up Senate business, Coburn's move prevents a vote on a funding bill for the Department of Defense. The current funding provision expires at midnight on Friday.
Coburn said he was doing Americans a favor. "I admire Senator Sanders for his willingness to fight for publically [sic] what many advocate only privately -- a single payer health care system funded and controlled by bureaucrats and politicians in Washington. Every American should listen to the reading of this amendment and pay careful attention to its vote tally," Coburn said in a statement.
"The American people deserve to understand the competing approaches to reform in the U.S. Senate. It's unfortunate that Senator Reid waited until the last minute to introduce his bill and now wants to rush it through the Senate. This reading will provide a dose of transparency that has been lacking in this debate."
The group, "Senate Doctors," a Republican coalition of lawmakers with medical backgrounds, re-tweeted that Coburn was "a rockstar."
Senate Democrats are powerless to prevent the full reading of the amendment due to parliamentary rules. And they don't appreciate the favor. "The only thing that Sen. Coburn's stunt achieves is to stop us from moving to the DoD appropriations bill that funds our troops -- not exactly the kind of Christmas gift that our troops were expecting from Dr. No," said Jim Manley, senior communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Coburn has a long and unapologetic career of standing in the way of Senate business.
Sanders provided a summary of his amendment to colleagues: "This amendment would establish a single payer health insurance system that would cover every person legally residing in the United States. The single payer system would be regulated and funded by the federal government through a payroll tax and an income tax, but it would be administered by the states. It would replace the coverage and revenue titles of the current bill, but it would leave in place most of the provisions in the quality, prevention, and workforce titles of the bill. This amendment starts from the premise that health care is a human right, and that every citizen, rich or poor, should have access to health care, just as every citizen has access to the fire department, the police, or public schools."
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46 Comments so far
Show Allfinally something usful from the GOP. Bernie's ammendment SHOULD be read aloud...then PASSED
Absolutely!
Unfortunately, the Dem's don't want it read anyway, it just points out their corrupt proposals the more.
As Coburn said, at least Sanders has the honesty to propose what he wants.
If the reading stops war funding, then let them read endlessly.
Should be interspaced with quorum calls, to make sure that they are listening.
And if Bernie's amendment is not passed - introduce a longer one which must be read aloud.
The next amendment should be to scrap the whole piece of crap and start over with a good plan.
Hear..here...time to drop the rest of the BS and do what is right for all our people..not the corporate bottom line. We need to work on this together to feel good about where our country stands in regards to respect for health, life, and wholeness, over profit for a few...unfortunately our people have been steamrolled into complacentcy over the complicity of our representatives to tow the corporate line...why are lobbyists even allowed in Washington, they are not THE PEOPLE...but have more influence, unfortunately, than us. If anymore corporate fascist welfare bills pass, those voting for them should get the boot in 2010.
I should think at this point that the grandest most heroic thing a human could do would be to obstruct the business of the US vampire senate. There should be alternating bomb threats and fire drills and gas leaks and perhaps the release of live swine into the chambers from time to time.
I'm still naive enough to be amazed that the plan that will save lives, cover everyone and cost far far less, the one that's been proven to work in many other countries over and over again - is the outside long shot plan to be implemented.
Send the lobbyists to fight in Afghanistan. Send the lawyers to fight in Iraq. Turn over the US government to Mrs Hathaway's grade six class and watch life improve for every living thing.
If this was a lifeboat these guys would be over the side already.
"....and perhaps the release of live swine into the chambers from time to time."
Time to time? I thought it was a daily event?
Yeah, that was my thought too. Then I realized that I was carrying the "cultural" image of a pig. There are people who insist that the pig is actually an intelligent, social animal.
So a REPUBLICAN and an INDEPENDENT are getting this thing aired and holding up war funding (however temporarily) as a lagniappe. I love it!
And the Dems want A) no discussion of single payer and B) to rush ahead to approve war funding!
Does this mean that we'll finally see an end to the CommonDreams articles about what X or Y issue "means" to the Democrats? Stuff the Dems.
Can we all finally agree that the Democrats are worse than useless, are in fact enemies of the left and the poor and the planet, and forecefully move to backing indepedents and small party candidates..?
-"And the Dems want A) no discussion of single payer and B) to rush ahead to approve war funding!"
Yes, amusing isn't it. Not one Democrat bothered to stall the illegal Iraq invasion and now they are mad that funding for "the troops"(defence contractors) will be delayed....and yet somehow i feel that the war lobbyists will still be able to afford Christmas presents.
And single payer legislation, why should anyone read that, when the senators are so good at just passing what is written for them by big pharma and the insurance firms.
The single-payer amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders is the only thing that makes any sense. Humans need simple healthcare and not Insurance Bondage.
I totally agree with you!
Senator Sanders is speaking NOW on C-SPAN 2!
Uhhh! Don't any of you get it???
The intent of this 12-hour "reading" is to ridicule the single-payer bill, ridicule it's proponents, and by extension any government involvement in the provison of public services (including the horrible existing bill), while holding up military business. The military, as any conservative will tell you, is the only ligitimate function of government - thus assuring an angry backlash at Sanders and any other senators on the left.
And me, an Aspergers adult, is the one who is supposed to be socially clueless!
'"The only thing that Sen. Coburn's stunt achieves is to stop us from moving to the DoD appropriations bill that funds our troops -- not exactly the kind of Christmas gift that our troops were expecting from Dr. No," said Jim Manley, senior communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).'
We should credit Huffington Post for exposing the Demok party's horrific priorities in this article. In the above quote, Senator Reid is exploiting the troops to advance the elite agenda that benefits nobody but elites, in particular, imperialists, zionists, and war profiteers. As we see, the Demoks and Repuks take turns enslaving themselves to the elites, each dragging the people into slavery along with them. Will it take another civil war to emancipate the people from this slavery? Or will we find a peaceful way to cage the elites?
As pjd412 points out, and notably Huffington Post fails to point out, Coburn's stunt is designed to hijack healthcare reform, simply because it's a Demok initiative. That the Demoks are exploiting the people's demand for healthcare reform to advance the elite agenda is merely a contender in the crime competition taking place in the US Congruss.
Coburn is one of the leading con artists among the Repuks spoiling the people's business with obfustication, distortion and confusion, which is intended to push the people into frustration and apathy, and ultimately surrender and involuntary consent.
Read Coburn's op-ed on Nov 5 at tulsatoday.com. It's pure bullshit. Coburn should be strung up and hung from a lampost in Oklahoma, by Oklahomans. The people want single payer healthcare, because it will put out of business the crime-mob privateers who have jacked the cost of healthcare in the USA to double the cost in other countries, and who threatened back in September to jack it up to five times in ten years.
Maybe Oklahomans can string up a privateer or two along with Coburn.
rtdrury
This amendment was not going to pass attached to the DOD bill. Bernie knew that. He's just trying to get the gutless dem's to do the right thing.
As to Coburn...my compliments to him and anyone else that can or will derail this travesty of a bill. The Democrats are not proposing health care reform. They are rewarding insurance companies, medical providers and drug companies while giving themselves a juicy bunch of new taxes.
Thats what their "Reform" consists of.
Speaking honestyly, the "people" were not and are not "demanding" health care reform. Its about #4 orc 5 on the "peoples" list.
matthew loughran
coburn is one of the 2 asshole senators from oklahoma. they are both right wing lunatics assholes. kind of like the 2 right wing asshole senators from texas.
rt,
It will take a civil war. Nothing short of that will be enough to wrest the power of this completely broken system of governemnt for sale to the highest bidder until the oppressed masses rise up and take it from them. But don't worry, I think we will see it in the next 15 years or less and it will be most bloody.
As a pacifist I complement your wisdom.
For surely in comparison to police state Empire USA,
the mass rebellion you see unfolding is the better of two evils.
Are you sure blood is a better alternative? You guys seen a lot of blood?
Someone else will do the dying, not them. All revolutions end up like that.
democRats
I dunno, maybe Coburn did the world of favor by delaying the DoD funding bill. If the DoD don't get paid, does this mean we could potentially have {gasp} peace for Christmas?
WTF. Right on.
R Sen McConnell was toying around with having the 2000 page Dem bill read, too.
Maybe there's a silver lining to this fiasco...
Let's have every bill read. Pork and all.
Not a chance
The goal of our rich ruling class being to keep the public
blind to the reality that Single Payer (Medicare for all)
is the only solution to disaster medicine, surely at a
loss am I as to what paid actor Coburn is up to?
Coburn is insisting on a verbatim reading of the legislation in order to denigrate it. Major legislation, by necessity, like any legal document, is wordy. No one worries about this regarding the documents of a private corporation, but when Government gets wordy, they cry "opressive bureaucracy!" So, the actual verbal reading end-to-end is a stunt to make it seem bureaucratic and unworkable.
Update: It also was a maneuver to force Sanders to withdraw the bill. It worked.
Sanders withdrew his Bill ...
Coburn's reading would have taken the whole 12 hours ...
The Dems are too cowardly to introduce Sanders Bill as a
stand alone measure ... and so it dies ...
Tired of the hypocrisy ? ? ?
register Green Party ... www.gp.org
They'll take that seriously ...
When neither capitalism nor communism work, we could begin to look at their common failing, government that represents only the rich and powerful. Then before its too late, we may realize that the problem has always been "representative" government, the corruptor of democracy. Then we might re-examine our technological potential for direct democracy.
ezeflyer
Capitalism works just fine when you have a capitalist system in place. The US is just the best example of how well it works when we use the capitalist system.
Unfortunately we don't have that system in place, we have a "free trade" interventionist government corruption of it. THAT does not work well.
From zero coverage to 12 hours coverage, I'll take it! What are they worried about that they would break their silence on even speaking the words "single payer"? No press is bad press, eh? I think Coburn's plan would have backfired if Sanders hadn't boomeranged it.
So ... Sanders was "forced" by Democratic party "leaders" to withdraw his single-payer amendment. There will be no vote on single-payer today. Senators will not have to choose between a career-ending vote of "no" on single-payer, or a conscientious vote of "yes" on single-payer. This, according to what I've just witnessed on C-SPAN 2 and read elsewhere.
And all this because Sen. Coburn asked for the amendment to be read aloud before the vote? This reading would have delayed other Senate business, and therefor Sen. Sanders had to withdraw his amendment?
IF THAT'S TRUE, then why didn't Sanders promise that he will ask that Republicans' amendments be read aloud before being voted on? Why didn't Sen. Reid promise Republicans that HE will ask that their amendments be read aloud before they can be voted on, IF COBURN WOULD NOT WITHDRAW HIS REQUEST?
And, if voting on the DOD funding bill today was so damned important, why is the Senate in a quorum call now? They aren't doing a damned thing!
This is B.S.! Obama and Reid don't want a vote on single-payer! They want to keep up the charade that they want single-payer, but can't get it through Congress.
I want a LIST of NAMES of Senators who vote "no" on single-payer. If they vote "no" we can replace them in coming elections. We can't get that list of insurance-industry shills until there is a vote.
Obama and Reid are the enemies of single-payer. I wouldn't be surprised if they conspired with Coburn to kill the vote on single-payer.
Naturally
"Obama and Reid are the enemies of single-payer."
You certaionly have that right. I'm no socialist and socialism is a failed ideology, but Bernie Sanders is a socialist and he proposed Single Payer Insurance which is NOT a socialist form of health care per se. We have SS, there is no reason not to have SP. He has my respect for his stand up attitude.
As far as Tom Coburn and the rest of the republicans go, we don't really know how they would react to honest SP legislation, no one has ever presented it as stand alone health care reform. Even Sanders was an amendment. And it was arttached to a bill where it had no business being.
Shame the Dems don't have his guts.
The Sanders amendment replaced (almost) the entire bill it "amended." It was the real deal.
I saw it later,I hope he attaches it to the real bill. Correct....and what a shame to miss the chance to find the Quislings in Congress.
In previous articles here and elsewhere regarding Sanders' determination to present his amendment, I decided to keep quiet for a change instead of instantly predicting that this long shot would surely be pre-empted on procedural grounds.
One can still say "nice try" to Senator Sanders; if there were even a dozen senators like him I might feel a glimmer of optimism that less-ruinous politics is still possible.
But Sanders is a fluke, and I don't believe there's the slightest chance that "electing more and better Democrats" will achieve the cumulative result of a Sanders-like coalition.
In 2006, when I foolishly allowed myself to be fleeced by promising "anti-war, anti-Bush" Democratic candidates, I fantasized that progressive Democrats might form a new internal coalition or caucus combining veterans like Russ Feingold and John Conyers with the new ostensibly-progressive freshmen-- a group that could push Dem party leaders to the left, and hold THEIR collective feet to the fire while vigorously deconstructing the utterly evil imperialist and domestically authoritarian Bush maladministration.
But I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.
This latest tapdance reminds me of a similar "baby step forward" last August; here's a reminder, and my response at the time:
Liberals Will Get Single-Payer Vote on House Floor by Mike Soraghan
"Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) offered a single-payer amendment in the Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday, but withdrew it after Waxman said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had promised a floor vote."
_________________________________________________________
Dear Editor:
Please insert the following correction into the above article:
"Rep. Charlie Brown (D-N.Y.) offered to free-kick a football in the Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday, but withdrew the proposal after Linus said House Speaker Lucy Van Pelt (D-Calif.) had promised to personally hold the football on the floor and allow Brown to kick it."
· Yr Obd't Servant
Isn't your Lucy and Charlie Brown analogy a bit off this time? It turned out to be right in the House. But in the Senate there was an extra layer of deceit, as a reprehensible Republican played the role of the villain.
The question now is, did Lucy enlist an out-of-town bully to hold the ball for Charlie Brown? Did Obama/Reid invite and embrace Coburn's procedural tactic so as to avoid putting Democrats on record for or against single-payer?
I argue that having a vote on single-payer would be a victory in itself, regardless of the outcome. 60% of Americans want single-payer, it's a proven success around the world, and many Senators have claimed to be for it. A vote would put these Senators' fealty to the test. If they failed to vote "yes" they would be exposed as double-dealing frauds and fast-tracked out of public service. To me, it doesn't matter how their replacements self-identify ... they could be Dems, Independents, Greens or Populists, as long as they vote for single-payer.
Henry8 writes "...socialism is a failed ideology"
I doubt Canada, England, Germany or France would agree with you. Nor would the American military which is probably the best example of socialism in America today (free dental, healthcare, guaranteed pensions, free education, subsidized housing, etc.)
Socialism is merely the State taking on some of the responsibilities of its citizenry through the ideology of 'shared interests' and ‘shared costs’ such as Medicare or the post office.
Today's Capitalist system (which truly is a failed system for the majority of citizens on the planet) has morphed into its psycopathic, distant cousin, corporatism which supports, elects and dictates to government policies that only favour tnarrow, private interests …at the expense of the public!
It's funny that the Republicans may actually get elected in the next election on a platform of universal healthcare pointing out what a traitor Obama was (and he is!) with his refusal to adopt a progressive platform regarding healthcare. But of course a Republican victory in 2012 would never produce something as radical as healthcare for all or a reduction in military spending.
The unfortunate reality is that the Republicans are a shoo-in for the next election because Obama will have lost his core Democrats (the ones who are against war, want universal healthcare, despise Wall Street bail-outs, etc.)to Nader or some other progressive third party thereby splitting the so-called left and ensuring that a minority of Republicans led by corporate America and the Christian right will ascend to power once again.
Until America can jettison the corporate propaganda apparatus collectively known as the MSM (mainstream media), the general citizenry will remain in the dark.
>>>Space Cadet: Socialism is merely the State taking on some of the responsibilities of its citizenry through the ideology of 'shared interests' and ‘shared costs’ such as Medicare or the post office.
And don't forget the highways and the bridges - which also serve the capitalists for no extra cost. Or the military itself - most of which seems to be at the service of corporations - indirectly or directly.
Those are not socialist states folks. A socialist state runs the economy. These are social democracies, a hybrid. They all depend on capitalist economies.
The military is a dictatorship, not socialism. There is no room for democratic systems in an effective fighting force. Their benefits make up for their low pay.
Its the Independents he lost. He could retain every other vote he got and could not be elected without them.
So now the grotesque parody of a bill has nothing in it that would identify as "reform". It's a straight giveaway to the profiteers - The For-profit Insurance and Pharmaceutical Company Recovery Act.
We need to send people to Washington who can actually govern - reforming our campaign finance system is absolutely essential.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of disgruntled people to organize into a single-payer movement to steamroll the clowns into doing what is right and needed. And we need to
do some serious targeting of greedy, stupid and amoral legislators and replace them with real working Representatives and Senators, who actually think about the needs of the people and the nation.
And thanks to Bernie Sanders for a fine effort.
Thanks Bernie! Now stop the bill and be a true indpendent and tell the dems you are the new Joe in town!!!
Well, I guess this is proof that there is no such thing as a Democratic Party or a Republican Party, they are the same thing, We thought that voting for Barack Obama was a step in the right direction but instead he has proven that he was a Sleeper Cell put in place by the Rpublicans to fool everybody and to finish off this country. they all pretend to disagree but in the end they all do exactly what we don't want them to do. I for one are sick of all of them, It's time to fire them, how do we go about impeaching the whole damn lot.
LET'S HAVE EVERY BILL READ ON TV---PORK AND ALL.
BOTH HOUSES. ALL DAY EVERY DAY. WITH A CRAWL NAMING THE SPONSERS.
We need a single payer plan. Our health care system is owned by the insurance industry and our government has forgotten who they are to serve. Neither party serves the people. We have one hope. It is this. We, the people, must form a new government that is not controlled by corporations. This war has no value to our nation or the world. It is time to take our money and focus it on the rebuilding of our country.