Freedom Line Blog

Finally, a sudden bout of honesty from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on ObamaCare.

Before you get excited, however, you should read for yourself what she had to say, as reported by CBS News:

“The House and Senate plan [is] to put together the final health care reform bill behind closed doors according to an agreement by top Democrats,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today at the White House.

In other words, after days of spewing laughable tales of how “open and transparent” the legislative process on health care has been, the Speaker has decided to be “open and transparent” about how non-transparent Congressional Democrats plan to be moving forward in their efforts to pass ObamaCare.

For more on this issue, read CFIF’s commentary titled, “The Transparency of the Presidential Lie.”

You know he must have really been in the wrong. The headline: “Obama Reneges on Health Care Transparency.”

This is hardly breaking news, but now that the national media has latched onto the story and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has spent the past few days parrying verbal barbs from the press, maybe President Obama and Congress will listen and actually open the doors for the American people to see what’s really going on during those backroom deals.

Mr. President, the ball is now in your court.

HT: Max Pappas

Remember back in 2006 when then soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that Democrats would “lead the most honest, most open and most ethical congress in history?” What about the repeated promises by then Candidate Obama to “broadcast [all health care] negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are?”

Of course, when it came time to “debate” health care, neither Pelosi nor Obama kept their promises.  Instead, both leaders have steered a process that has resulted in all variations of “reform” thus far being written behind closed doors, out of sight from the American people and with virtually no input from Congressional Republicans. 

As the Associated Press pointed out:

The House passed its version of the bill on a Saturday night. The Senate held its key procedural vote at 1 in the morning, and then provided a lump of coal in our stockings by forcing full passage of its bill on Christmas Eve. The House leadership banned consideration of all but one amendment not offered by leadership itself – forbidding debate on more than 150 of them – then provided just 24 hours for members to study the bill’s final text. The Senate leadership inserted so many tawdry last-minute items that analysts are still finding jokers in the deck 11 days later.

All these shenanigans have driven approval for the government health care bills even lower in public polls than the strong majorities that already opposed them a month ago.

Well, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb is now daring Congressional Democrats to put their money where their mouths are. 

FoxNews.com reports:

The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public, as top Democrats lay plans to hash out the final product among themselves.

C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open ‘all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings,’ to televised coverage on his network.

‘The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety,’ he wrote.

There’s only one problem.  Holding true to their back-room strategy, Congressional Democrats are reportedly going to shut Republicans and the American people out of the process again as they seek to combine the House and Senate versions of “reform.”  Maggie Haberman and Charles Hurt of the New York Post reported today:

Congressional Democrats plan to take final negotiations on the massive health-care overhaul behind closed doors — far from the prying eyes of the public and most lawmakers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have decided not to impanel a bipartisan ‘conference committee’ because it would give Republicans an opportunity to stonewall certain procedural votes.

Instead, they will do it themselves informally out of their offices without formal public meetings.

And they wonder why the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose their plan … whatever that final plan may be.

The Baucus Bill, passed by the Senate Finance Committee last week, has been written and filed… all 1,502 pages of it.  The public posting of the bill is, of course, after the Committee passed it without reading it.  After the absolute certainty that it isn’t going to be the bill on which the entire Senate votes.

You can read it here, but we wouldn’t recommend wasting your time.  Harry Reid and other members of “the most open and transparent Congress in history” are presently working behind closed doors with senior aides of “the most open and transparent Administration in history” to draft yet another version of ObamaCare that will ultimately be considered by the full Senate.   News reports indicate that a floor debate on the new, secret “reform” legislation could begin as early as next week.  But that all depends on whether the White House and Senate negotiators are able to buy off the docs and finish their other back-room wheelings and dealings by week’s end.  

Didn’t President Obama promise to air all health care reform negotiations on C-SPAN?

For all you policy junkies out there who just can’t resist, we must warn you that reading the Baucus Bill can cause severe anxiety, eye strain, sudden spikes in blood pressure, heart palpitations and chronic disgust in your government.  If you decide to proceed, it’s best you read it online rather than printing it off and carrying it over to that comfy Lazy Boy.  It’s still unclear whether hernia operations will be included on the final list of government-approved procedures covered by what is likely to be your new government-approved insurance plan.

CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses transparency, or the lack thereof, in the nation’s capital and what you can do to hold our political leaders accountable.  Click here for more information about CFIF.  Click here for more videos from CFIF.