On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) argued that “we’re moving a little bit too quickly on healthcare reform.” And that “I don’t think we need to introduce legislation on Monday and have one chance to amend it on Wednesday. That’s what they did with Obamacare, and that’s one reason why Obamacare has seen so many people lose their insurance or lose access to their doctor despite the promises that were made.”
Cotton said, “I think we’re moving a little bit too quickly on healthcare reform. This is a big issue. This is not like the latest spending bill that, you know, gets released on Monday night and passed on Wednesday and everybody goes home for Christmas and we live with for it for nine months. We’re going to live with healthcare reform that we pass forever, or until it’s changed in the far distant future. So I don’t think we need to introduce legislation on Monday and have one chance to amend it on Wednesday. That’s what they did with Obamacare, and that’s one reason why Obamacare has seen so many people lose their insurance or lose access to their doctor despite the promises that were made. I would much sooner get healthcare reform right than get it fast. That’s, after all, why we have a Congress, so 535 different people, from all regions of the country, representing different kinds of constituencies, can come together and talk at a deliberate pace, and try to reach a consensus solution that’s best for the American people. So, I do not want to move in a hasty fashion. I want to get it right. I don’t want to get it fast. And the Senate certainly will not just be jammed with whatever the House sends over here.”
He added, “[T]rying to pass this bill through committee in the House today, and maybe even pass it through the floor next week, even though it’s much shorter than Obamacare, it’s very hard for us to get our hand around what’s in it. The language — and you may have seen it, it’s highly technical and complicated. It may only be 123 pages long, but you have to review it in the context of today’s laws and today’s regulations. So it’s hard to say right now where one stands on any particular provision, or especially the bill as a whole. It, obviously, has some good measures. Some of the Medicaid reforms, that will give governors more flexibility to tailor their Medicaid programs to their population, to make sure that Medicaid protects the traditional Medicaid population, like the severely disabled and the blind and the elderly. But, beyond that, it’s simply too soon to say. We’ve only had this bill in public for 36 hours. And to try to rush it through this week and then vote on it within the next few weeks really does harken back to some of the problems that Obamacare was created under.”
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