Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn urges protesters to help defeat health bill- sen. Tom Coburn stalls health care bill
at 15:15
Coburn shut down Senate debate of sweeping health care legislation for nearly three hours Wednesday when he forced the reading of a lengthy amendment. Coburn had planned to force the reading of the entire health care bill — which is more than 2,000 pages long — when debate began three weeks ago, but other Senate Republicans persuaded him not to make that move. Coburn, R-Muskogee, objected to a routine request to waive the reading of an amendment, forcing Senate clerks to read the document aloud. Typically, senators are allowed to explain their amendments in lieu of having them read in their entirety.
The amendment was offered by Sen. Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont and the aim was to establish a single-payer, or government-run, health care system in the US. Under Sanders’ amendment, the nation’s Medicare program would have been extended to every U.S. citizen. Sanders withdrew his amendment about three hours into its reading and criticized Republicans for preventing a debate and vote on it. "That is an outrage!” he shouted. "In this moment of crisis, it is wrong to bring the United States government to a halt.” Sanders said he knew his amendment would have failed, but he predicted that the United States would eventually adopt a single-payer system.
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