Republicans hypocrisy, complained hysterically....

The times Republicans complained about transparency in health care talks

By Paul P. Murphy

As Senate Republicans, largely outside public scrutiny, hash out details over their health care plan, Democrats are hammering them for what they say is a lack of transparency.

Seven years ago, Republicans were complaining about Obamacare negotiations -- an imperfect comparison, considering Democrats held a number of bipartisan hearings and markups, a White House summit and President Barack Obama even addressed the GOP caucus -- often tweeting their disgust at what they said was backroom deal-making.

Current Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, then representing Georgia's 6th Congressional District, said Democrats were "sacrificing the trust of the American people."

He also told CBS News in 2010: "The negotiations are obviously being done in secret and the American people really just want to know what they are trying to hide."

Vice President Mike Pence, then an Indiana congressman, called the drafting of legislation affecting "100%" of Americans "simply wrong."

Then-House Speaker John Boehner gave an impassioned speech on the House floor during the debate, saying in part, "Look at how this bill was written. Can you say it was done openly? With transparency and accountability? Without backroom deals struck behind closed doors, hidden from the people?"

His response: "Hell no, you can't."

He asked the House if they had read the bill.

His response: "Hell no, you haven't."

"If you rush this thing through before anybody even knows what it is, that's not good democracy," Boehner's successor, Paul Ryan, said in 2009.

Linda McMahon, who leads the Trump administration's US Small Business Administration, said in January 2010 that American health care was too "important" to be done behind closed doors.

Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican congressman from Florida, went even further at the time, demanding that all conference committee meetings should be public.

"Ramming through a partisan bill" is like "going to war with out asking Congress's permission," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, told "Fox News Sunday" in 2009. "You might technically be able to do it, but you'd pay a terrible price in the next election."

"(F)or Harry Reid yesterday to say, well, I'm going to ram it through no matter what, that makes me wonder if there's an agenda behind this," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, told CNN in 2010.

Top GOP aides have told CNN's Phil Mattingly and Lauren Fox that the deal-making in darkness is by design, so that GOP members can continue to give feedback to the drafters. They realize that once the bill's draft goes public, they cede control of the narrative -- and the bill's language.

CNN's John Berman asked Republican Sen. Mike Rounds Tuesday about whether there was some irony about Republicans drafting their health care bill behind closed doors.

"No question about it," he said with a chuckle. "I think there is."