Texas, March 21: Republications plan to present hundreds of amendments to an historic health care bill when it arrives in the Senate, a senior Republican senator says, signalling a messy fight to the finish.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas said the aim is “to highlight what is in the bill that is bad and why the American people are right when they say we don’t want it”.
Asked on Fox News if Republican leaders had planned dozens of amendments to the legislation, he answered that there were “probably more on the order of hundreds of amendments” to the bill after it moves from the House of Representatives to the Senate.
The party also planned to challenge specific provisions of the Bill as not having a direct effect of reducing the deficit, he said.
The Senate’s presiding officer, Vice President Joe Biden, could at some point declare the amendments to be delaying tactics and call a vote on the Bill.
“That could happen,” Senator Cornyn said. “But I guarantee it will happen on television, for 300 million people to see, and I think there will be a terrible price to be paid for this sort of defying public opinion,” he said.
Democratic leaders have said they have the votes to secure passage of the health care reform legislation through a complex series of votes in the House and then a final vote in the Senate.
The Bill would extend health care insurance to nearly all Americans through a blend of expanded government health programs and subsidies for millions to buy private insurance.
—Agencies