About the author

Bob Graham is executive editor at Insurance & Financial Advisor and IFAwebnews.com.

More by Bob Graham »
Contact Bob Graham »

The Republicans in the U.S. Senate appear ready to use any and all available means to slow or kill the Democratic plan for comprehensive federal health care reform. As if the process hasn’t been bad enough, Republicans could make the ongoing debate over serious national reform become less fun than watching curling on TV.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) spelled out the game plan in a letter, where he suggests imposing rarely invoked rules forcing the Senate to read every, single page of every proposal and amendment. That approach will be painstaking, and is likely to further frustrate and obfuscate any serious intent to reform health care in the U.S. Other delay tactics include using exact rules for the handling of amendments and meeting the criteria for quorums, the types of things only an expert in Robert’s Rules of Order might know.

If the Senate must read every bill and amendment out loud, it might be the first and only time anyone actually reads the text.

Unfortunately, the details contained in the bills and the amendments won’t be the real story of health care reform. That will unfold over the coming years, when senators have moved on to other issues, and we are victims of change and an increasing national debt.