Letter to the editor: Health bill fairness

To the editor:

Most Americans who have been paying attention to health reform remember the conservative furor that arose in 2010 when Rep. Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House, uttered these famous words: “Congress has to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”

After months of hearings and many Republican amendments offered and accepted, the Affordable Care Act was passed by Democrats after Republicans refused to support even their own ideas and amendments.

Fast forward to June 2017, with a group of male senators working quickly in secret to formulate ACA repeal. Other senators — even our own delegation — do not know what’s in the bill, much less the American public. The health sector accounts for one-sixth of the US economy. It is the height of hypocrisy and fiscal irresponsibility for Republicans, after slamming Pelosi in 2010, to accept a secret bill that affects the lives of millions of Americans without a single hearing.

If you criticized Pelosi for those words, you cannot excuse your lack of concern about Senate Republicans’ secret deliberations of a hugely unpopular bill. We all must tell our senators that this is not the way.