But it wasn't. It was debated for MONTHS out in the open. Rammed down our throat???
That's what Republicans are doing NOW. Trying to ram this bullshit down our throats.
It was not debated for months. Something else was.
Remember Obama saying "if you like your doctor..." ? That was something else that was debated.
What was passed was something Harry Reid wrote behind closed doors and passed via a parliamentary trick.
All told, from the Friday night, Dec. 18, when Nelson and Boxer agreed to abortion language, to the Thursday morning/Christmas Eve of final passage, there were about five days of consideration for the final bill in the Senate.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...re-through-the-senate/?utm_term=.42ac7509ccb3
Working secretly in his office, much like Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) merged the two committee bills and unveiled his own version of a health-care bill on Nov. 18 that was scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
In a bit of legislative maneuvering, Reid offered his text as an amendment to a completely different House bill — the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009. That’s because this bill had been sitting on the Senate Calendar of Business, avoiding the need for Reid to obtain unanimous consent to bring it up. This bill was also already obsolete — the issue had been taken care of in another bill — and so it was an ideal vehicle to start debate on the Senate floor. Reid inserted the text into the shell of the old bill.
On Nov. 21, a
party-line vote allowed debate to begin on the health-care bill. But Reid still did not have the support of all Democrats. As Cannan put it:
“Democrats unhappy with the legislation’s initial form were unwilling to block its path to consideration, but they threatened to filibuster if changes were not made. Reid had to have the support of each one to get to a vote. While Republicans had not dug in their heels to fight the motion to proceed, hoping to tarnish vulnerable Democrats by forcing them to vote in a way that could be characterized as a substantive vote for the health care bill, they would not be so accommodating with the next cloture motion, and they were united in their opposition.”
So consideration of the bill “proceeded on two parallel tracks,” starting when the Senate returned to work on Nov. 30. The first track was public, with the illusion of debate and votes on amendments. The official record shows 506 amendments were offered.
Cannan says this activity suggests “a vigorous effort to alter the bill’s final form on the Senate floor. But this number is deceptive. In actuality, only a tiny fraction of these amendments has any significance” to the bill’s legislative history. Only a handful of amendments covered by a unanimous consent agreement (UCA) reached between the two sides had any relevance, he concluded. Meanwhile, “all of those amendments not covered by UCAs were ordered to lie on the table as soon as they were introduced and had no parliamentary standing at all.”
That’s because the real work was going on behind closed doors, back in Reid’s office, where he negotiated significant changes with a group of moderate Democrats. Eventually, Republicans and Democrats would no longer agree to even keep debating the matter on the floor, and so the public spectacle ended on Dec. 16. The Senate turned to other matters, including passage of a Defense Department appropriations bill, while the private negotiations continued and the Senate remained in session.
During the private talks, Reid agreed to remove a public option in the bill, as well as drop a plan to allow people between the ages of 55 and 65 to buy into Medicare. There was also a significant change in abortion coverage, which
The Washington Post reported required hours of Schumer’s and Reid’s shuttling back and forth in Reid’s offices between antiabortion Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and key supporters of abortion rights, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who never sat in the same room as Nelson. Some lawmakers, like the now-retired Nelson,
cut special deals. Nelson negotiated enhanced Medicaid reimbursement for his state.
Once the deals were in hand, Reid on Dec. 19 revealed a manager’s amendment revising the proposed bill,
which was also scored by the CBO. He filed three successive cloture motions to end debate on the revised manager’s amendment, on his original amendment and on the original House bill. He also filed three other amendments that had the effect of “filling the amendment tree” — cutting off opportunities for the Republicans to alter the text.
Just as McConnell appears to be determined to have a vote before the July 4 holiday so that lawmakers don’t get nervous after confrontations with constituents, Reid pushed forward with a vote before Christmas. Republicans cried foul. “I do not remember, in my 15 years in the Congress, both in the House and in the Senate, any major piece of legislation such as this being debated and ultimately brought to a final vote within such a short period of time,” declared Saxby Chambliss, at the time a senator from Georgia.
Over three successive days, the Senate took a series of votes, all of them split 60 to 39, to deal with Reid’s various amendments. Washington was snowbound, and delaying tactics by Republicans meant votes took place as late as 1 a.m., forcing the 92-year-old, wheelchair-reliant Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) — who had missed 40 percent of the roll call votes that year — to
make a late-night journey through the snow and ice. One Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), even
offered a prayer to stall the vote. “What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight,” he said. “That’s what they ought to pray.” (One housekeeping item: Renaming the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 to The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.)
Final passage came with on a 7 a.m. vote Christmas Eve morning.
All told, from the Friday night, Dec. 18, when Nelson and Boxer agreed to abortion language, to the Thursday morning/Christmas Eve of final passage, there were about five days of consideration for the final bill in the Senate.
