Tag: GOP DENATE

The Republican effort to secretly craft a health care bill and whisk it through the Senate is drawing fire from members of both parties. But it’s not uncommon for either party to draft bills or resolve stubborn final hurdles behind closed doors, forgoing the step-by-step, civics-book version of how Congress works. That’s even true for the process that produced President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act, which the GOP is now trying to dismantle. While Democrats reached out to Republicans, held scores of committee hearings and staged many days of debate on that legislation in 2009 and 2010, they also resorted to private meetings to reach agreements that clinched its approval