Senate GOP'ers Blast Obama For Threatening To Veto Payroll Plan
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 4:25PMRepublican leaders in the upper chamber blasted President Obama Tuesday for threatening to veto legislation ending payroll relief that includes language requiring the president to sign off on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
Following a closed-door luncheon, Republican senators explained that the balanced function of their version of the payroll tax holiday, arguing the Keystone XL Pipeline is estimated to produce an immediate 20,000 jobs and that other language rolling back regulations on the EPA’s Maximum Achievable Control Technology would ultimately save jobs.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered his support for the current GOP payroll tax package, calling it a bipartisan bill that deserves to be passed.
“This has been a very balanced package put together by the House designed to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats.”
McConnell also fired on Democrats for signaling that they may withhold a vote on the omnibus bill until language is changed in the Republican payroll plan.
“It’s appropriate to ask the President and the Majority Leader why they want to undo a deal that was already made and threaten to shut down the government here a week before Christmas,” McConnell said.
“This is a rarity around here,” McConnell enumerated. “We’ve got a bipartisan agreement on a number of appropriations bills and the President, presumably in order to create some political issue - which I find difficult to understand - has instructed Democratic senators not to sign the conference report on a bill they support.”
Reid, Solis Join Forces With Healthcare Providers To Push For Reform
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis joined healthcare workers and healthcare providers Wednesday to support making healthcare affordable for Americans this year.
Reid and Solis stood with nurses, doctors and leading healthcare providers before they delivered hospital scrub tops to Congress inscribed with written messages from thousands of frontline healthcare workers across the country.
Healthcare workers and administrators launched the “Every Patient Matters” campaign Wednesday through the Partnership for Quality Care, to ensure that America’s direct caregivers have a voice in the debate on how to provide quality and affordable healthcare to all Americans.
Dennis Rivera, chairman of SEIU Healthcare, said that with Reid’s help, healthcare reform will be passed this year.
"Senator Reid is an incredible advocate on behalf of working women and men of Nevada and throughout this country, and a leader who knows we can do what is right. We can pass healthcare reform this year," Rivera said.
Reid said there were 10,000 scrub tops from around the country, and that insurance companies make the most money in the healthcare field. He said people ask why insurance companies do better than any other business in America during these hard times.
“The reason is that [the] insurance industry is not subject to the anti-trust laws we have in our country. More than a hundred years ago, big businesses were running our country...Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust law under a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, because big business had gotten out of hand,” he said.
Donnetta Miller, a registered nurse from Nevada, presented Reid an inscribed scrub top to thank him for being “a champion on getting healthcare reform passed.”
Miller wore a shirt that read, “As a healthcare provider, I wish to voice my demand for healthcare reform. This must pass this year, this congress. Our patients cannot wait another year. We’re swiftly approaching collapse of the Medicare/Medicaid system. Our seniors, our patients deserve healthcare reform. Donnetta Miller."
Solis said she understands the importance and how pivotal insurance reform is for the nation right now.
“Asthma, diabetes, obesity, cancers, HIV and AIDS. All these things and illnesses prevent people from getting healthcare right now, or they die from not getting healthcare. And we can’t afford to leave that be the status quo. We need to change it, “ she said.
Diane Palmer, a nurse from Maryland, held up a scrub top and read a message that a nurse from Seattle had written on it. The message said, “My 12 year old has chronic health issues. She runs the risk of meeting her max coverage without healthcare reform. We could face a life or death situation. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a nation to protect one. Please protect my child."
George Halverson, Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, said America is the only country in the industrialized world that has not created universal coverage.
“We are the only country in the industrialized world where our people need to worry that a healthcare event is going to drive them into a solvency or bankruptcy. That is wrong,” he said.