Politics

72 Hours

By Karina

As with House consideration of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, Speaker Pelosi is committed to having the final health insurance legislation online for at least 72 hours before the House votes on it. From our twitter feed on health insurance reform:

During the course of the 111th Congress, the three Committees responsible for drafting legislation (Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor) have:

Spent nearly 100 hours in hearings on health reform
Heard from 181 witnesses (both Democratic and Republican)
Spent 83 hours in Committee markups
Considered a total of 239 amendments (both Democratic and Republican) and approved 121

Bill text and online availability throughout consideration:

Draft bill was available online for 25 days before HR 3200 was introduced»

HR 3200 was posted online for 30 days before the first Committee markup»

HR 3200 was posted online for 107 days before introducing the merged bill»

Text of the reintroduced bill, HR 3962 was posted on October 29th–9 days before the Floor vote»

The Democratic leadership made the Manager?s Amendment (introduced November 3th) available for a full 72 hours before the Floor vote on November 7th»

A side-by-side comparison of key differences between the House-passed and Senate-passed bills has been available online since December 29th and was updated on January 6th»

The full House spent 9 hours debating the legislation on the House floor in a bipartisan fashion, including allowing the minority a substitute bill to be offered, debated, and voted on.

While the House has been working for more than six months on health reform legislation (the draft bill text was posted in June), consider House Republican actions for the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. The entire process from introduction to passage on the floor spanned 11 days, leading up to an unprecedented three hour vote on the conference report:

June 16, 2003 ? HR 2473 Introduced and referred to committees
June 17, 2003 ? W&M Mark-up
June 19, 2003 ? E&C Mark-up
June 25, 2003 ? HR 1 Introduced
June 26, 2003 ? Brought to House Floor
June 27, 2003 ? 2:32 AM, passed 216-215

Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer reaffirming their commitment to 72 hours today:

The House Democratic Leadership is committed to having the final health insurance reform legislation online for 72 hours before the House votes, for all Members and the American people to review. We will continue the transparent process this landmark legislation has had for months.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 14, 2010 (boomark / email).