The Cellar - View Single Post - Impeding changes to our Health Care system

10-03-2009, 10:05 AM

Here is a good example from the House bill, The America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009

The initial draft of the bill is 1,018 pages in its entirety. The reason it is so many pages is that it uses large fonts, short lines of text, with wide spaces between lines (and each line numbered) so that it can be marked-up by the committees as they review it.

Is it really a 1,018 page bill or are the Republicans playing theatrics when they wave it around and drop it on the table to a loud "thump" to make a dramatic point! Nope, with normal fonts/spacing/formatting, it is probably not more than 100-150 pages.

Now the example:
Title II is the proposal for a health insurance exchange (Subtitle A), including a public option (Subtitle B).

In the full text, 1000+ page draft bill, Title II is described in pgs. 72-143 (71 pages) - you dont want to read this, not because of the length, but rather because it can be confusing with all the references, including grammatical edits, to existing laws and the US Code.

In a cleaner version (with the removal of some, but not all of the extraneous references to existing code)...Title II is described in pgs. 22-42 (20 pages) and the total 1000+ page bill is reduced to 57 pages...but still not the easiest document to read.

In a section-by-section summary, Title II is covered in 4 pages (pg 4-8) and the total 1000+ page bill is reduced to 35 pages.

And the most basic, one page, "at a glance" descriptions of:
the Health Insurance Exchange

Public Option

IMO, most members of Congress do not need to read the full 1000+ page original text bill to understand the proposed health insurance exchange and public option (or any provisions), but every member should read more than the one page "at a glance" summaries.

There is no reason why any interested citizen cannot read the 35 page summary to have a reasonable understanding of the bill.

And can we now stop with all the 1,000+ page bill nonsense?

10-03-2009, 10:05 AM	#1040
Redux Guest Posts: n/a	Here is a good example from the House bill, The America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 The initial draft of the bill is 1,018 pages in its entirety. The reason it is so many pages is that it uses large fonts, short lines of text, with wide spaces between lines (and each line numbered) so that it can be marked-up by the committees as they review it. Is it really a 1,018 page bill or are the Republicans playing theatrics when they wave it around and drop it on the table to a loud "thump" to make a dramatic point! Nope, with normal fonts/spacing/formatting, it is probably not more than 100-150 pages. Now the example: Title II is the proposal for a health insurance exchange (Subtitle A), including a public option (Subtitle B). In the full text, 1000+ page draft bill, Title II is described in pgs. 72-143 (71 pages) - you dont want to read this, not because of the length, but rather because it can be confusing with all the references, including grammatical edits, to existing laws and the US Code. In a cleaner version (with the removal of some, but not all of the extraneous references to existing code)...Title II is described in pgs. 22-42 (20 pages) and the total 1000+ page bill is reduced to 57 pages...but still not the easiest document to read. In a section-by-section summary, Title II is covered in 4 pages (pg 4-8) and the total 1000+ page bill is reduced to 35 pages. And the most basic, one page, "at a glance" descriptions of: the Health Insurance Exchange Public Option IMO, most members of Congress do not need to read the full 1000+ page original text bill to understand the proposed health insurance exchange and public option (or any provisions), but every member should read more than the one page "at a glance" summaries. There is no reason why any interested citizen cannot read the 35 page summary to have a reasonable understanding of the bill. And can we now stop with all the 1,000+ page bill nonsense? Last edited by Redux; 10-03-2009 at 11:40 AM.