Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sent a letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in which she writes that the American people have a right know what’s in the GOP healthcare reform bill before it goes up for a vote.
The letter reads in part (emphasis added):
This week, the Committees on Energy & Commerce and Ways & Means will be marking up Republicans’ long-feared bill to dismantle affordable health care. The GOP legislation will have life or death consequences for tens of millions of families across America, and extraordinary impacts on state and federal budgets long into the future.
The American people and Members have a right to know the full impact of this legislation before any vote in Committee or by the whole House.
Members must not be asked to vote on this legislation before the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation have answered the following questions about your legislation in 2018 and 2019, over the 10-year budget window, and in the decade after: How will this bill measure up to the Affordable Care Act and current Medicaid law on coverage, quality, and cost? And how will it impact Medicare solvency?
…Mr. Speaker, as a former Chair of both the Committee on Ways and Means and the Budget, you understand the importance of having the numbers as well as anyone. These are critical questions and I hope that Republicans will honor their responsibility to the American people both before the Committees vote and before the final bill goes to the House floor.
No need to check your calendars; we’re a full three weeks away from April Fools’ Day.
As if anyone needs a reminder, Pelosi famously said of the Affordable Care Act as it was being rammed through Congress with no Republican support (emphasis added):
“You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the [other]. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future; not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for, or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.
But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it–away from the fog of the controversy.”