Surprise: Democrat Health Care Bill Weighs In At A Hefty 1,502 Pages
As Allah points out, “At a steady clip of two minutes per page, working a full eight-hour day, you’d be through it in just under a week.”
But don’t start reading yet (though if you do want to it’s here). It’s going to change, because now the real legislating begins!
The Senate Finance Committee filed its sweeping health care reform bill Monday and its release served largely to highlight the divisions among Democrats over the direction of reform.
The massive, 1,500 page bill is expected to serve as the backbone for Democratic reform efforts going forward and five senators expressed concerns about one of its main provisions, a 40 percent tax on high-end insurance plans. …
It’s important to remember that the bill won’t exist in this form for long. Senate Majority Leader Reid and Sens. Max Baucus and Chris Dodd along with senior White House aides are merging the Finance and Health Committee legislation into one bill that will be considered on the floor of the Senate. The behind-closed-doors dealings have drawn criticism from Republicans, particularly because President Obama had promised a transparent process and pledged to negotiate the health care bill on C-SPAN.
The problem with health care in America right now is that there is a serious disconnect between Americans and the plans that cover them. By the time you total up all the people who get their health care either through an employer or through a government program like Medicare you’ve reached 85% of the population. Meaning that most Americans have nothing to do with negotiating the terms of their coverage, and most are also insulated from the realities of their health care costs.
Given that reality and the lack of market forces that accompanies it (which is the reason behind spiraling health care costs), I wonder how 1,500 pages of increased government interference into a market already made entirely too complicated by government interference is going to make anything better.
And the answer is that it won’t make things better. But it will increase government dependence. And that’s the point.
