Healthcare

[WallStreetGuru]

There are mixed emotions and mixed opinions on this health care issue. I, for one, am not convinced and confident of this health care bill that has been passed into law. Most people are against it, but many are not really aware how it will affect us. I read in a blog that the legislators did not thoroughly read and understand the bill when they signed it into law. If this is true, then how can we also understand it?

[henk4]

There are mixed emotions and mixed opinions on this health care issue. I, for one, am not convinced and confident of this health care bill that has been passed into law. Most people are against it, but many are not really aware how it will affect us. I read in a blog that the legislators did not thoroughly read and understand the bill when they signed it into law. If this is true, then how can we also understand it?

"Most" people are against it, is a traditional reaction from the vocal minority. The people voted for Obama and one of his programme points was healthcare reform. What you read in a blog is not necessarily the holy truth. Actually, most of the time it is not. What may have happened is that the legal health care specialists in the House fully understood and read what was in front of them for signing, and that they could therefore convince their collegues to vote in favour (or against) the bill. None of the "lawmakers" knows everything about every law. Probably the health care specialists will bother less to read detailed defense laws, or anti terrorism stuff.

[wwgkd]

"Most" people are against it, is a traditional reaction from the vocal minority. The people voted for Obama and one of his programme points was healthcare reform. What you read in a blog is not necessarily the holy truth. Actually, most of the time it is not.

In this case it does seem like nobody was happy. A lot of people wanted health care reform, but no one I've talked to, liberal or conservative, really seems happy with the way this turned out. Some wanted more, some less. I think a lot of the unhappiness is the result of the compromises made to get anything passed at all, as well as some of the behavior of the legislators working on it and the deals that were made to get the neccessary votes even with a democrat "supermajority." There's a reason this took a year to pass.

As for the second part, QFT.

[henk4]

In this case it does seem like nobody was happy. A lot of people wanted health care reform, but no one I've talked to, liberal or conservative, really seems happy with the way this turned out. Some wanted more, some less. I think a lot of the unhappiness is the result of the compromises made to get anything passed at all, as well as some of the behavior of the legislators working on it and the deals that were made to get the neccessary votes even with a democrat "supermajority." There's a reason this took a year to pass.

As for the second part, QFT.

The process is a result of the need to seek for a compromise. Also the democrats themselves were not univocal regarding the way the system should be reformed. And it is natural tendency to highlight those aspects from a compromise that one personally does not see being properly addressed.

[Kitdy]

Concering the lawmakers not knowing what they are passing, I would say that I doubt that many (or any) in congress or senate bothered to read all of the bill. They probably had staffers summarize it (wasn't it around a thousand pages long?).

I think that is common practice for any bill though; many are very long (hundreds of pages) and I know we all like to rag on politicians and say they are lazy but honestly I am not sure that even if they worked hard that they would have enough time to read all of it. Big deal. That's how shot gets done. Junior interns read the bill in sections and each summarizes their section; at the end, the senator or congressperson reads a 10-100 page summary.

Boom. Democracy is made.

[IBrake4Rainbows]

Senators aren't there to nut out the finer points of wording and law - they hire professionals to do that.

What they are there for is to act as a representative of their constituents. And to bang interns.