A push by congressional Democrats to make good on Barack Obama's pledge to provide millions more American children with health care coverage has Republicans accusing them of breaking the president-elect's promise of bipartisanship.
Senate Finance Committee Republicans said legislation approved by the committee on Thursday that would expand a popular children's health insurance program violated a spirit of bipartisanship that went into earlier versions of the legislation.
That "spirit of bipartisanship" Grassley refers to is the red meat the Republicans wanted to throw to their special interest groups: big insurance, and those folks on the right who don't like dem foreign people. Or their kids.
Grassley blamed Democratic leaders rather than committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, for producing a bill that he said omits a number of items sought by Republicans including provisions aimed at preventing the government run program from "crowding out" private insurance plans.
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Republicans also opposed an amendment that would drop a five-year ban on providing the children's health benefit to legal immigrants, which Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas called a "poison pill" that injects immigration, a divisive issue for Republicans, into the children's health debate.
"We've been thrown underneath the bus," Roberts said.
Better get comfortable down there, Pat. The days of your thievery are over.