You’ve got to love Senator Tom Coburn’s demanding that the 767-page amendment by the senate’s only avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, be read aloud. It would mandate a single-payer system. Nobody thinks it’s going anywhere, but it’s nice to know that the senators will have the option of familiarizing themselves with at least one aspect of what’s under consideration. Ed Morrissey notes:
It took eighteen minutes just to get through the table of contents … for an amendment. Philip says the pace picked up a bit afterward, and the entire amendment could be read within about 12 hours. That’s twelve hours of floor time, assuming Coburn keeps withholding unanimous consent.
What does this do? It makes a hash out of Harry Reid’s plan to move the bill through the Senate by Christmas. Twelve hours of floor time for just a single amendment means that no other business can be conducted until at least Friday. Coburn apparently launched this effort in response to an attempt by Reid to shove the bill to a cloture vote without giving everyone enough time to read the bill or peruse the CBO analysis, due this week.