Bills and the House of Representatives - Essay Example

Unit Title

Assignment

Introduction

As a member of the House of Representatives, the issues are in my policy agenda, that is, stabilizing medical health care and education, tax relief for certain commodities, and prison correctional reforms. Stabilization of medical health care and Education is, however, of greater importance in my list of policy issues. The two are very critical and lie at the heart of the people I represent. I would, therefore, choose to draft these bills for them to become law. Access to quality public Health care and medical care, for instance, is a concern for many policymakers. Over the years, we have recorded high mortality rates from diseases as well as injuries and homicides. This is because many of our citizens do not have health care insurance coverage, and a poll study by De Navas Wal, averages this number to 50million U.S citizens (Page 1978). This problem, particularly in the district's rural and frontier communities, is due to the high cost of living, can not afford health care services. For education, my primary concern is in the various aspects of education content and mode of delivery. Education is an important aspect of our society, and it should be geared towards cultivating a skilled work force. A curriculum should be developed that helps our students become critical thinkers to enable them to compete in the competitive global market.

Drafting the Bills

• Stabilization of the quality health care and medical care

Stabilization of the quality Public Health care and medical care encompasses population-based (public) services and individual medical care to individuals I represent. Health care has not stabilized in my district and among the problems and major concerns raised by my constituents are, access to public health care, inaccessibility to medical care, unaffordable health care insurance coverage, access to clinicians, physician density, primary care, access to health care facilities and timelines of care(Page 1978).

This bill seeks to address the issue of public health and medical care by suggesting that the same be budgeted for by the central and federal governments to ensure every constituent gets access to quality medical attention when they need it. For medical insurance covers, the bill puts it upon the national and federal government to provide health insurance to the greater share of my constituents. This can be done by tasking the private insurance to cover the public or replace it with universal government health insurance covers.

b.) Education

On the other hand, the education Bill includes both the constituents’ content and curriculum delivery of the same at all levels of education. The primary concern is whether there should be common standards in the district to achieve education instruction and achievement. As mentioned earlier, education is an important aspect of our society, and it should be geared towards cultivating a skilled workforce. A standard curriculum should, therefore, be developed that helps our students become critical thinkers to enable them to compete in the competitive global market space.

The two bills will be named and presented in the House of representatives as follows, the quality public health and medical care will be the quality public health care and medical care bill while the education will be named and presented to the House as the education bill. The tow bills will be classified as significant bills.

To gain support for these two proposed bills, I would calculatedly lay down my arguments why they should be passed into law by ( Rovner 1998);

• Focusing on common concerns of each bill and clearly outline the problems faced by the constituents. This would mean eliminating any reference to party or sponsors of the bill to prevent opposition.
• I would accommodate my opponent's significant contributions to the bill. This will ease their acceptance of the proposed solutions to the areas of concern with minimal or no conflict at all, as they will feel accommodated.
• Thirdly, I will use targeted descriptive words such as progressive, equality, and entitlement to help generate an inclusive notion of the bill and ultimately gain the trust of the democrats.

To increase the chances of these two bills being passed into law, I would consider the help of other members of the House to help in cosponsoring the two bills. This is because cosponsors of a bill in the House of representatives often help to demonstrate the bills are supported by several members of the House (Rovner 1998).

To convince the speaker and other party leaders to place this two policy issues in the party agenda, I would provide a detailed researched proof of all the facts I allege in the two bills and make sure to convince both parties of the agency of the matters and the role they would play should they be passed to the society at large.

Should I choose to bargain on whether to vote on these two bills or not, I will choose logrolling, a practice where two or more legislators to agree to trade votes on a bill that they care little about to one of significant concern to him, in this case, the quality public health bill and medical care and education. This will help me concentrate sizeable benefits to my district, by passing a bill that is of equal importance to them while spreading the cost over to taxpayers in the rest of the country.

Bills moving to committee stage

For the committee hearing of both bills, I will elect to call the following interests’ groups; doctors and fellow constituent members who have a higher interest in the quality of public health and medical care bill. For the education bill, I would elect to call teachers and other education stakeholders to give their opinion and testimonies to help support the bill through this stage (Micozzi 2014).

However, during markup, opponents of the bill can bring forth criticism that the quality public health and medical care bill is long overdue and has been discussed in various sittings and several amendments' have been made thereof. For the education bill, the opponents may criticize it judging by the fact that America offers one of the best curriculums in the world thus there is no need for further reforms of the already existing laws.

A window of hope, the two bills have been passed by the committees and assigned the house calendar, to which bills of public nature not raising revenue are directed. (Micozzi 2014).

General Debate.

Problems the bills I might encounter during the general debate

The general debate stage of these bills is rather very critical. It is during this stage that the members, will be given an opportunity to either support or oppose the bills. At this stage members of the House will be given a chance to comment, with each speaker being given a talk time of about an hour according to the house order rules. The speaker at this stage gives his view and opinion on the bill and this may either be for or against the contents of the bill. The is stage is critical because the said members will be required to vote either for or against the bill for it to move to the next stage. Secondly, members may propose the bill's amendments, which may act against the bills as it waters and narrow down the major concerns of the bill (Mason 1926).

As the bills near the final stages, other opposing members may use delaying tactics such as filibusters, that prolong the discussion of the bills in the House of representatives. The other delaying tactic used by opposing members is chubbing. This refers to a member debating a bill at a considerable length of time in a bid to slow down the legislative process. These delaying tactics are used by opposing members to prevent to either prevent the passing of the bills, further delay their consideration in a bid to gain an advantage in negations.

Of these two bills however, the quality public health and medial care bill is more controversial and would, therefore, elicit more debate from members of the House. This is because the issues of affordable and quality health care have long been in the heart of American legislators, and the same has been debated on and forth. Still, no viable solution has worked as constituents cannot afford medical care. Research has revealed that a great population of the American people can not provide medical insurance covers, and this works to their disadvantage as they get turned down for lack of it. This has further contributed to the high mortality rates of the constituents. This bill further raises a lot of debate as it generally seeks to address the issue by asking the federal and local governments to work hand in hand with private medical insurers to provide for the more significant population of the constituents. This means an increase in budget allocation for health an issue that may spew a lot of negative remarks (Mason 1926).

Conclusion

If I could change one thing on how bills are made in the House of Representatives, do away with the members' delay tactics. As seen above, opposing members may opt to delay the passing of a bill by either chubbing or filibusters. The House should make necessary rules to ensure that members do not use these delay tactics to defeat the efforts of their counterparts.

It is only prudent that an opposing member should present his reservations on a bill by tabling it before the House and letting the House decide through the process of voting. To this end, the House should give each member quality time to submit their concerns concerning a bill tabled in the House, and such a member will only do so within the stipulated time.

Any form of delay tactics by a member of the House should be treated as contempt of the house order rules and such a member should receive only one warning thereof. Should the member continue in the gross misconduct, the speaker of the House should immediately order the removal od such a member from the House during the sitting.

This measure will help make sure that important bills for the greater good of constituents are not consequently delayed by opposing members who do not want them to be passed. It will also help in maximizing the time the House takes to debate and pass the bills to the senate and ultimately to the signing of the bill by the president to ensure the greater good of the American citizens.