Slaughterhouse 216

House GOP Leaders to Force Vote Today on Measure Blocking “Slaughter Solution”

GOP Leader: “The ‘Slaughter Solution’ has sparked widespread outrage because it’s designed to protect Washington politicians when it’s American taxpayers we should be looking out for.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) announced that House Republicans will force a vote today on a resolution requiring a clean, up-or-down vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. If adopted by the House, the resolution would prohibit Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Leaders from implementing the “Slaughter Solution,” the controversial scheme by which the Senate health care bill would be deemed as passed by the House without an actual up-or-down vote.

“The ‘Slaughter Solution’ has sparked widespread outrage because it’s designed to protect Washington politicians when it’s American taxpayers we should be looking out for,” Boehner said. “Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Leaders, who promised to lead the ‘most open’ Congress in history, thought they could pull a fast one on the American people, but they were wrong. This vote will give Democrats an opportunity to demonstrate whether they share Republicans’ commitment to ensuring the American people get what they deserve: a clean, up-or-down vote on the Senate health care bill. The stakes are too high, and this bill is too controversial, for anything less than total accountability.”

House Republicans will offer the text of the resolution as the “PQ” (“previous question”) for the suspension authority rule that is expected to be considered on the floor today. The text of the resolution, introduced by Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL) – a former Democrat who switched to the GOP in December out of disgust with Washington Democrats’ government takeover of health care – is available here.