Re: How Obamacare Became Law - At The Expense Of The US Military And Their Families

[Your Democrat Congress In Action]

In article <t0qeas$2k0m1$4...@news.freedyn.de>
forging asshole <governo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Democrats are responsible for this.

I originally posted this piece on November 21, 2013. However
after yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling it began trending, so I’m
reposting:

It was the trickiest legislative move ever accomplished in the
Congress. Here’s my best play-by-play:

Obamacare was signed into law in March 2010. If you recall,
Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic majority in the House of
Representatives was unable to pass their version of a healthcare
law. Because all revenue bills have to originate in the House,
the Senate found a bill that met those qualifications: HR3590, a
military housing bill. They essentially stripped the bill of its
original language and turned it into the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (PPACA), aka Obamacare.

The Senate at that time had 60 Democrats, just enough to pass
Obamacare. However after the bill passed the Senate, Democrat
Senator Ted Kennedy died. In his place, Massachusetts elected
Republican Scott Brown. That meant that if the House made any
changes to the bill the Senate wouldn’t have the necessary
number of votes to pass the amended bill (because they knew no
Republicans would vote for Obamacare). So Senate Leader Harry
Reid cut a deal with Pelosi: the House would pass the Senate
bill without any changes if the Senate agreed to pass a separate
bill by the House that made changes to the Senate version of
Obamacare. This second bill was called the Reconciliation Act
of 2010. So the House passed PPACA, the Senate bill, as well as
their Reconciliation Act. At this point PPACA was ready for the
President to sign, but the Senate still needed to pass the
Reconciliation Act from the House.

Confused?

We all were.

And it got worse.

Remember that the Senate only had 59 votes to pass the
Reconciliation Act since Republican Scott Brown replaced
Democrat Ted Kennedy. Therefore in order to pass the Act Senate
Democrats decided to change the rules. They declared that they
could use the “Reconciliation Rule (this is a different
“reconciliation” than the House bill). This rule was only
supposed to be used for budget item approvals so that such items
could be passed with only 51 votes in the Senate, not the usual
60. Reconciliation was never intended to be used for
legislation of the magnitude of Obamacare. But that didn’t stop
them.

So both of the “Acts” were able to pass both houses of Congress
and sent to President Obama for his signature without a single
Republican vote in favor of the legislation. The American
system of governance was shafted. To quote Democrat Rep. Alcee
Hastings of the House Rules Committee during the bill process:
“We’re making up the rules as we go along.”

https://www.briansussman.com/politics/how-obamacare-became-law/

Senate Republicans burned a bill that would have helped veterans
- here's why

Republicans blocked a bill on Wednesday that many saw as a
bipartisan slam dunk, which aimed to expand certain benefits for
veterans due to toxic exposure they experienced while deployed,
leaving many veterans and their supporters shocked.

The PACT Act, a bill that would have expanded the Department of
Veterans Affairs health care to presume veterans whose military
service included exposure to burn pits— large trenches dug to
burn and dispose of sewage, medical waste and other trash— to be
victims of exposure to toxic substances and fumes when they
present with certain illnesses. The bill would have removed the
burden of proof veterans currently need to show in order to
receive assistance.

Both houses of Congress previously passed the bill with the
Senate voting 84-14 in June in favor but the the bill was forced
into another vote after “administrative issues” were found in
its text. After changes were made, it was expected to breeze
through Congress and be signed into law by Biden.

However, 25 Republican senators flipped their vote and blocked
the bill on Wednesday.

Supporters and activists, such as former talk show host John
Stewart, who had gathered at the Capitol hoping for a
celebration following the bill’s passing instead were met with
frustration. On Thursday, Stewart and others joined lawmakers
such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to forcefully call out
Republicans for voting down the bill.

“They don’t have to hear it, they don’t have to see it, they
don’t have to understand that these are human beings. Do we get
it yet, these aren’t heroes, these are men and women,” Stewart
said in a speech at the Capitol on Thursday.

With the final tally in the Senate on Wednesday at 55-42 (three
abstaining) the exact reason why Republicans flipped, they claim
has nothing to do with the bill’s focus, but rather how the
funds would be allocated and managed.

Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who lead opposition to the bill,
expressed his desire for wanting an amendment focused on
budgetary spending.


Senator Pat Toomey
@SenToomey
·
Follow
Tonight, the Senate voted to give us the chance to fix a
completely unnecessary budget gimmick in the underlying text of
the PACT Act. This gimmick allows $400B in spending completely
unrelated to veterans care.

“There is a mechanism created in this bill, it’s a budgetary
gimmick, that has the intent of making it possible to have a
huge explosion in unrelated spending—$400 billion. This
budgetary gimmick is so unrelated to the actual budgetary issue
that has to do with burn pits that it’s not even in the house
bill,” Toomey said on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

Toomey told CNN he wants the funding of the bill handled through
an annual appropriations process, rather than the current
mandatory spending structure.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he also does not
support the ”budgetary gimmick” but does support the bill.

“As written, the legislation would not just help America’s
veterans as designed. It could also allow Democrats to
effectively spend the same money twice and enable hundreds of
billions in new, unrelated spending on the discretionary side of
the federal budget,” McConnell said on Thursday. “There is no
excuse why the Democratic leader should continue to block
Senator Toomey’s commonsense amendment. A bill this important
and this bipartisan deserves for us to fix this accounting
gimmick, and then it deserves to become law. “

https://www.vox.com/2022/7/30/23284976/senate-republicans-pact-
act-veterans

--
Again Democrats use the US Military and their families as
political pawns.