Jan
08
Why does Pelosi’s Affordable Health Care for America Act contain 1990 pages?
By
Question: http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/10/affordable-health-care.shtml
Will this like any piece of legislation, contain hidden gems that are impossible to decipher without two lawyers, a psychic and the 3rd floor ward of your local mental institution to help make sense of it all?
Here’s the link directly to the proposed bill:
http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf
23 Comments
January 8th, 2010 at 11:07 am
And the 1986 Tax Act sponsored by Ronald Reagan had 13,000 pages. So what?
Legislation is never an easy read, and it always takes lawyers to decipher it. Why would you expect this bill to be any different?
January 8th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Have you seen how many pages fill up the current legislation?
January 8th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
It’s the most major piece of legislation that affects all Americans probably in your lifetime. You would prefer a cliff notes version?
January 8th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Your source is a BLOG?
January 8th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
cause she knows that most of america wont read it so why not sneak some hidden liberal agenda in there while we’re at it.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Because 1991 was an odd number.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
It’s called legislation.
January 8th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Just another ploy to misdirect confuse or mislead change we can believe in.
January 8th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
republicans who believe something as complex as the US health care should be presented on a cliff note are hilarious.
Of course the bill is several thousand pages, it needs to be because our current health care system is the most convoluted and disorganized system in the world.
January 8th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I think gadfly deserves best answer, hopefully now you will not use such silly arguments again.
January 8th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
It is a make work bill for lawyers.
January 8th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
You must be new to this whole legislation thing.
Or let me guess…this has ONLY started happening under Obama. Before Obama all bills were only 10 pages…right?
January 8th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
camoflauge
January 8th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
She needs a place to hide the paragraph that gives her free botox and plastic surgery for the rest of her life.
January 8th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
It might have a lot to do with the very simple fact that this an enormously important piece of legislation.
(Gadfly: Nice 13000 page 1986 Tax Act Reagan reference! Its amazing how some people appear to assume that everyone is as ignorant as they may be.)
January 8th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Legal documents are long and complicated – and in LEGAL LANGUAGE if that’s not too big a surprize. They don’t come any more complex than healthcare, and every possibly permutation and possibility must be addressed, or this bill WON’T BE LEGALLY BINDING!
Anybody with med/legal education can easily understand this bill, and they were all in the discussions which led to lawyers writing this contract so yes they know exactly what’s in it.
But MOST of the length comes from REPUBLICAN and INSURANCE COMPANY questions and concerns – what about this? what about this? ALL that leads to more pages and chapters!!!!
January 8th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Because they need to trick the astute American people also and that can be tough evan for an accomplished lier.
January 8th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Because she was trying to make the number of pages equal the year.
But she ran out of pinter ink, so that’s a far as she could get.
Didn’t you notice that almost ALL of these recent bills happen to be around 2009 pages long, give or take a few dozen?
January 8th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Absolutely! Anytime they want to hide the truth from us, they make it overly difficult to understand and use 75 words where 3 would normally suffice. Very few people have the patience and understanding to read something like this.
Make no mistake. This is deliberate! They’re trying to hide many things.
January 8th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
You have a point, but there’s a reason for so many pages. Bills have a certain written format. All federal bills are restricted to 25 lines per page and no more than 15 words per line. Several pages are devoted to charts, lists, footnotes and references, not the body of the bill, but rather explanations or information. And of course all legal documents are done in lawyer-speak jargon….that is, each word has to have a precise ‘legal’ meaning. Read any contract and you’ll see what I mean. Overall we’re talking about a document that’s about as long as two average sized paperback novels. I’ve noticed that the right wing radio dummies and the Foxniks never mention this and I’ve always wondered why….maybe they don’t know, or they just want to bad mouth the entire concept of affordable and accessible HEALTH INSURANCE for all Americans. Give it a think!
January 8th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
The real question is why Obama is going back on his promise to post any bill on the net for 72 before the vote.
I guess it’s safe to call it a lie since he obviously didn’t mean to do it.
Then there was the other related lie about the televising of congress during the health care debate so we could see who is double dealing and who is on the side of the people.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Not even a team of highly advance aliens would make any sense of the bill, even if they speak our human language, that bill is purely insane and same goes to the people who wrote the bill.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Because it’s easier to sneak in stuff that only a few of the far left want if the bill is so long and intimidating that the average person will just skim over it vs. read it page by page and comprehend.