Hatch Criticizes Health Care “Shell Game”

Mike Brownfield / October 16, 2009

The health care bill that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee this week will not pass the Senate in its current form if Democrat leadership comply with procedural rules, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told conservative bloggers on a conference call this morning. However, he expects the Democrats to abuse the reconciliation process to get the legislation through.

Hatch’s extensive remarks were pointed and sharply critical of the Senate Democrats’ health care plan and the “shell game” he says they played in creating and passing the bill out of the Senate Finance Committee.

Democrats’ claims of bipartisanship on the basis of Sen. Olympia Snowe’s (R-ME) sole Republican vote are a “joke,” Hatch remarked, and he noted that if the opposition had worked with his party, they could have had 70 or 80 votes when the bill landed on the Senate floor. In his view, that bipartisan coalition of one may not hold together.

“I don’t know if [Sen. Snowe] is going to stick with them,” he said. But if she doesn’t (more…)