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Kline reveals existence of 'super-bureaucrat'
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DiggAs the senior Republican on the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, Minnesota congressman John Kline is expected to get a lot of face time on C-SPAN this weekend as the House nears a showdown vote on the Democrat’s health care reform plan.
So it was his job to testify for the GOP during a Rules Committee hearing Friday that sets out the ground rules for the upcoming vote.
With Republicans in no hurry for action on a bill they see as a government takeover, Kline took the opportunity to read a few choice excerpts from the nearly 2,000-page bill, particularly those pages that describe the duties of a new “Health Choices Commissioner.”
This “super-bureaucrat,” in Kline’s reading, gets a broad swath of duties: Defining the term “dependent;”
(page 9); submitting reports (page 99); determining what a qualified health plan is (pages 100 and 101); establishing exchanges for participating health plans (page 121); establishing qualified health benefit standards (page 133); you get the idea.
“This is all one bureaucrat, Madame Chair…We have created a super-bureaucrat here who can define, deny, deem, determine, assess, establish, and administer,” Kline said. “This is an enormously powerful individual.”
Hill staffers are expecting a long weekend.
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