The United States Senate reached an agreement on health care reform legislation this weekend, and they couldn’t have done it without a bit of Chicago grit.
At least, that’s what South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham thinks.
But it’s no compliment.
Graham, a long-time friend and adviser to President Obama’s election opponent John McCain, said the bill, which passed the Senate late Saturday night was only reached because of “seedy Chicago politics” which have been established by the new president from Chicago.
“This is far from over. The House and Senate bills are in many ways irreconcilable,” Graham, a Republican who voted against the bill said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sunday morning. “ … You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan. And it's really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes.”
Graham is upset over what he calls Enron-accounting tactics that were used to make the bill look solvent.
“It is a sham. You collect taxes for 10 years and you pay out benefits for six years, and the Class Act, which no one's talking about, is a completely new government entitlement.”
Seedy or not, now that the Senate has passed a version of its health care bill, both houses of Congress will attempt to reconcile the differences between their bills. That process should take just as much Chicago moxie to pull off.
