Boehner plans to have the House vote on a bill to pass funding for the NIH. The GOP seems to want to use the approximately 30 children who are being denied cancer treatment as rhetorical leverage in the shutdown debate. Dana Bash asked Reid whether the Senate would pass the legislation after the House passes it. Reid attacked Bash as "irresponsible" and "reckless."
My take is he missed a very easy chance to highlight the issues. What he could have said is below the fold.
What Reid could have said:
Dana, don't forget that this shutdown is because the GOP wants to end Obamacare. If Boehner gets his way, those 30 children will be unable to purchase health insurance when they are adults. Obamacare removes the pre-existing conditions clauses from insurance policies. The proposal in the House of Representatives would allow insurance companies to deny these very same children health insurance as soon as their repeal of Obamacare is passed. Many of the 30 million Americans without health care are in the situation they are in because they are cancer survivors or are currently battling cancer and cannot find insurance companies to provide them coverage. So, at the same time that Speaker Boehner is calling for cancer treatments for 30 children, he is denying it to thousands of children and adults. Passing a clean CR would provide cancer treatments for these 30 children now and throughout their adult lives.
Second, it is hypocritical that Speaker Boehner wants to highlight 30 children who desperately need health care in this debate while he is arguing that 30 MILLION people should not have access to health care. So, Speaker Boehner wants to leave 29,999,970 Americans without health care in exchange for providing 30 children with health care. Passing a clean CR would cover these 30 children and allow an additional 29,999,970 people access to health care.
Finally, the shutdown is because Speaker Boehner and his colleagues do not believe there is a place for the federal government in health care. But the first part of the budget Boehner wishes to see passed is the part of the budget that provides health care. Apparently, even Speaker Boehner recognizes the importance of ensuring access to quality health care as an important role for our government.
Will we pass the stand alone legislation? No. Because these 30 children deserve access to health care throughout their entire lives, because we believe that 30 million Americans deserve access to health care, and because we believe--as apparently Speaker Boehner does--there is an important role for the federal government to play in health care.