Senator Orrin Hatch Likes Not One Thing in the Health Care Bill

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said on Sunday, “If the Democrats think this health care thing is over, they’re nuts.” Standing in the Russell Building Rotunda today, two days after the Democrats passed health care reform, Hatch stood by his word.

“This isn’t going to go away no matter what happens,” he told Imus. “Even if they pass the bill, everything that goes wrong with health care is now their problem.”

One major problem Hatch foresees is how states will shoulder the burden of the 16 million additional people that will be “shoved” into Medicaid.  “They’re trying to move more and more people into Medicaid and Medicare, and by doing that, ultimately reach their single-payer system,” he theorized.

President Obama will sign into law today the Senate’s version of the bill, which has passed in both Houses of Congress. But there still remains the issue of the reconciliation package, a 156-page document that makes corrections to the Senate bill that Democrats in the House had stipulated prior to signing the bill they passed on Sunday.  

His head spinning, Imus wondered if his guest could name just one positive aspect of the more than 2,000-page health care bill.

“I really can’t think of one thing that’s good in this,” said Hatch, who believes the true goal of the Democrats is to make as many people as possible dependent on the federal government, thereby creating “a natural Democratic Party constituency they can control in this country, and control the country through it.”

As for the more than 30 million additional people Obama’s plan will insure, Hatch said, “They’re insured anyway. We do an awful lot for the poor.” He balked at the expansion of those defined as “poor” under the bill to families of four earning up to 88,000 annually, saying that the federal government can’t afford it. Besides, he added, the 25 percent of Americans who actually support health care reform “are on the dole anyway.”

The remainder of Americans either did not support the bill, or wanted Congress start over. That some House Democrats who were on the fence wound up voting for the bill led Imus to believe they had been “bribed.” Hatch agreed, criticizing his Democratic colleagues for succumbing to the usual “gimmicks” of earmarking.

“Let’s say somebody got you to do something, and then you got something for Utah,” Imus said skeptically. “That’s never happened, has it?”

Hatch owed he has acted similarly in the interests of his home state, but protested that “It’s gone way too far,” and that there is a difference between good and bad earmarks.

Whatever, dude. Point: I-Man.

-Julie Kanfer