Mike Levin: “this bill and this rule are useful in one sense, and that is that it really shows what the majority is all about. Truly…”

“this bill and this rule are useful in one sense, and that is that it really shows what the majority is all about. Truly, it makes a mockery of all the talk about bipartisanship. There was not, in the last 24 hours, I think, 1 minute of discussion between the majority leadership and the minority leadership. There was no effort to dialogue with the administration. Instead, I guess the majority thought they would put together a stew of the bad and the good and try to get this through. There has been a lot of talk about compassion in this campaign. This makes a mockery out of the talk on the majority side about compassion. They delete provisions regarding pregnant women and children. They delete the provision for people with Lou Gehrig's disease, just among a couple of important aspects of this. And then, look, hospitals in my district, many of them are in trouble. And so what they do is hand a bundle, 40 percent, to HMOs and they shortchange the hospitals that really need it. Whose side are they on? So they want a Presidential veto. I would have thought they would have learned by now. They are going to get one. The President will get on the bully pulpit, as he can do so well, and tell America what this bill is all about. And I hope he takes that pulpit all around this country. Because this puts in place what Republicans are really all about. Halloween, it unmasks their efforts on compassion. It takes the mask off all of this talk about bipartisanship.”