Fox & Friends' Steve Doocy baselessly claimed that Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is offering a way to pass health care reform legislation “without actually voting on it.” However, the House has already voted on and passed a health care reform bill, and a legislative rule reportedly under consideration would still require the House to vote on changes to the Senate's health care reform bill.
Doocy baselessly claims Slaughter is angling to pass health care reform without a vote
Written by Tom Allison
Published
Doocy: By passing a rule, the House can “pass the health care bill without actually voting on it”
From the March 11 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: It's interesting, though. While the Democrats are meeting behind closed doors today, Louise Slaughter, who is the chair of the House Rules Committee -- she has apparently got this idea on how the House can vote on this bill without actually voting on it. Because apparently, what -- you know, where people actually come out and say, “I'm for it,” or “I'm against it” -- apparently, with each bill they have to come up with a -- they have to agree on a set of rules. And according to the papers this morning, the “Slaughter solution” rule would declare that the House deems the Senate version to have been passed by the House, and then House members would then have to vote on whether or not to accept the rule. So, by passing that rule, then they can pass the health care bill without actually voting on it. That is crazy.
House has already passed health care reform legislation and would still need to vote on changes to Senate bill
House has already passed health care reform bill. Contrary to Doocy's claim that the House “can pass the health care bill without actually voting on it,” the House already passed health care reform legislation on November 7, 2009.
Report: House would still have to vote on corrections to the Senate bill. Contrary to Doocy's claim that the House would pass the bill simply by voting “on whether or not to accept the rule,” CongressDaily reported (subscription required) that the rule would require that the “House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version” for passage. From NationalJournal.com's CongressDaily:
House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.
Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.