Sanders Knocks GOP For Using His Single-Payer Amendment To Force Delay On Health Care

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) took direct aim at Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) today, for delaying debate on health care legislation by requiring the text of Sanders' 767-page single payer amendment to be read aloud on the Senate floor.

"A single payer program would be the only way to bring universal, comprehensive, cost-effective health care to all Americans," Sanders told reporters at a press conference today. "I really do appreciate [Senator Coburn's] desire to make the American people know this through 10 or 12 or 14 hours of the reading, but I think he may have overdone it a little bit. But you know this is nothing more than an ongoing, stalling tactic on the part of the Republicans."

Sanders addressed Coburn directly about this on the Senate floor earlier today. He says he told the Oklahoma Republican, "Why do you want to waste hour after hour...it's just incredible to me that with all of the problems facing this country today, that Senator Coburn and the Republican leadership would want to absolutely waste time, and that is why I think the American people get so frustrated."

As I noted earlier today, the stalling tactic isn't just slowing down the health care reform debate. It also may kick a vote on the defense appropriations bill past the date at which funding for U.S. troops is scheduled to run out. That would force Democrats to take extra steps to insure that money keeps flowing.

It's possible that the reading will be dispensed with, but that would require unanimous consent of the Senate, and Republicans insist that they're not relenting.