Wendy Sherman: “I rise to protest the process that brings H.R. 1, the Medicare reform and prescription drug legislation, before the…”

“I rise to protest the process that brings H.R. 1, the Medicare reform and prescription drug legislation, before the House today. These procedures could only be described as undemocratic and unfair. Republican Leaders were in the room for weeks as this bill was drafted, and were able to brief their members on its contents. Democratic Members could not begin to analyze the bill's provisions until yesterday. We were given almost no time to review the conference report for this momentous legislation. We have waived the rules of the House to allow for this hasty, almost immediate consideration of a bill more than 1,000 pages long, so that not even the members of this body, to say nothing of the public, can fully grasp what is included. There is no way that we, with a fairly full day of debate in this body, could have read the bill in the short time provided. And it is not enough that we merely read the bill. One must understand its implications. This alone demands that we vote ``no'' now, to give ourselves more time to fully deliberate and debate this legislation. Mr. Speaker, again, I rise to express my strong opposition to the process by which we are today voting to overhaul one of the most important institutions in our country. American seniors deserve better, and we owe them more of our time; we owe them full deliberation, debate and our full consideration of this legislation.”