Healthcare reform

[StrangeSox]

The part where you're still thinking the minority party represents the majority.

[kapkomet]

The part where you're still thinking the minority party represents the majority.

 

 

Because they do in this case. But, whatever. I'm sure you know it all.

[bmags]

No one knows what's in the bill? I do. The one thing they are negotiating is abortion and that will be something similar to the senate or house. If you don't know what's in it it's because YOU HAVENT READ THE BILL! READ THE BILL! READ THE BILL!

[StrangeSox]

Because they do in this case. But, whatever. I'm sure you know it all.

 

 

We need a kap response generating program.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

 

We need a kap response generating program.

 

It's always different.

[lostfan]

It's always "different."

minor fix

[Y2HH]

No one knows what's in the bill? I do. The one thing they are negotiating is abortion and that will be something similar to the senate or house. If you don't know what's in it it's because YOU HAVENT READ THE BILL! READ THE BILL! READ THE BILL!

 

I'd love for you to say that to me in person so we could have an in depth discussion on what's in the bill, because your claim to know whats in the bill is laughable, at best. And an outright lie in the least. You couldn't, right now, without Googling, give me ANYTHING in the bill that's not some bullet point list, and I don't need to know you to know that.

 

You have no clue what's in the bill, or how it's written, and you couldn't even begin to decipher it without a degree in law.

 

You THINK you know what's in the bill. You've read a few things here and there, but never the final bill, because it's not released yet, since they make changes to it from minute to minute. You've heard things, second, third or fourth hand...

 

But you have zero understanding outside of a bullet point list as to what's ACTUALLY in the bill and how it ACTUALLY applies to real life. Not even congress knows, because 99% of them haven't read it. Same goes for the senate.

 

I like to be real. So be real...and stop lying to yourself about understanding that bill. You don't. Neither do I.

 

Nobody truly does.

 

And that's the problem.

Edited March 11, 2010 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree.

[StrangeSox]

I'd love for you to say that to me in person so we could have an in depth discussion on what's in the bill, because your claim to know whats in the bill is laughable, at best. And an outright lie in the least. You couldn't, right now, without Googling, give me ANYTHING in the bill that's not some bullet point list, and I don't need to know you to know that.

 

You have no clue what's in the bill, or how it's written, and you couldn't even begin to decipher it without a degree in law.

 

You THINK you know what's in the bill. You've read a few things here and there, but never the final bill, because it's not released yet, since they make changes to it from minute to minute. You've heard things, second, third or fourth hand...

 

But you have zero understanding outside of a bullet point list as to what's ACTUALLY in the bill and how it ACTUALLY applies to real life. Not even congress knows, because 99% of them haven't read it. Same goes for the senate.

 

I like to be real. So be real...and stop lying to yourself about understanding that bill. You don't. Neither do I.

 

Nobody truly does.

 

And that's the problem.

 

You can read the bill online. I've read chunks of it. This claim that it is impossible to understand the bill because its not in its 100% final form is stupid on its face.

 

[lostfan]

The major points that are intended to be put in the bill (except the public option) and the intended effects of each one have pretty much been public knowledge for months. There is the Senate bill and the House bill that have been both on house.gov and senate.gov since at least December with various other versions before that, and there've been studies of each one on various websites, and yes, the Republicans have even proposed bills although not as thorough as the Democrats. It's not like at this point they are going to spring a surprise on everybody and try something new. So to be 100% honest, if someone claims to not know what's in the bill and they're acting like it's some super-secret plan, it's not even really worth arguing about it because it's really not and they should've read about it themselves because in many cases I see people emphatically claiming there is or is not something in the bill and they'd find out they were wrong if they actually had bothered to look.

 

One guy at work was ranting about "this monstrosity of a bill" and something that was in it (I forget what) and I asked him "out of curiosity, which one are you referring to? H.R. 3200?" He wasn't ready for that, his response was something like "eh... uh, yes." I actually wasn't trying to put him on the spot but I knew that H.R. 3200 didn't have whatever he was talking about in it and I could tell he never looked it up for himself.

Edited March 11, 2010 by lostfan

[StrangeSox]

People also like to point to the "2000! pages! LOL!" without realizing that its not like 2000 pages in a text book.

[Y2HH]

People also like to point to the "2000! pages! LOL!" without realizing that its not like 2000 pages in a text book.

 

It's still 1500 pages too many, regardless.

 

And I repeat, to all, it's EASY to understand bullet points, but it's NOT easy to understand the many if's, else's, or when's that apply differently depending on the specific situation in relation to those bullet points. There will be pages that counteract other pages, and/or supersede them, again, depending on the situation at hand. Combined, all of these things HAVE to be taken into account to truly understand what this bill will actually do and how it will actually apply to real life.

 

Fixing the steering wheel of the car (insurance), when the engine remains broken (hospitals/doctors charging whatever they feel like charging), will do nothing for the people. It will merely shift who pays for what and how.

Edited March 12, 2010 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

It's still 1500 pages too many, regardless.

So if we changed to normal typesetting, we'd have your support, since that would fit into something like 600 pages?

To count the words in War and Peace , we relied on a feature on Amazon.com called "Search Inside!" that quantifies the books it sells on various measurement scales. That function found that the Oxford paperback version of War and Peace , an English translation, has 561,893 words. (In an accompanying chart, Amazon notes that 0 percent of books it studied have more words than that, so Hatch has picked the the right epic novel for his comparison.)

 

As for the bill, we cut and pasted it into a Microsoft Word document and found that the bill contained 384,067 words. Just to make sure that Word wasn't choking on such a large file, we did a sampling of word counts on individual pages, then multiplied the typical one-page count by the total number of pages in our Word document. The single pages we checked tended to have a bit fewer than 300 words per page in Word. So, with our document running to 1,372 pages -- shrinkage that illuminates how spread-out the text of the Senate bill is -- we came up with a ballpark estimate of 411,000 words.

 

That last estimate is a bit higher than what the Microsoft's word count function found, but not by much. Either way, Reid's health care bill is actually shorter than War and Peace .

 

So while Hatch is right if you simply count pages, when you use a more accurate comparison -- the number of words -- War and Peace is actually longer. In other words, he is right by one measurement, but not by the best measurement. So it turns out that Democrats aren't as wordy as a Russian novelist. Who knew?

 

We find his claim Barely True.

[StrangeSox]

It's still 1500 pages too many, regardless.

 

 

Fixing the steering wheel of the car (insurance), when the engine remains broken (hospitals/doctors charging whatever they feel like charging), will do nothing for the people. It will merely shift who pays for what and how.

 

How do you plan on fixing the "engine" without tacking on an additional several thousand pages?

[Balta1701]

How do you plan on fixing the "engine" without tacking on an additional several thousand pages?

Throw it all out and establish a fully government run universal system. You kill off 90% of the pages because you don't have to have different regulations at different levels, you don't have different groups lobbying for special deals, you don't have to worry about making sure your language is so tight that lobbyists can't find their way around. It's the only solution.

[Y2HH]

Throw it all out and establish a fully government run universal system. You kill off 90% of the pages because you don't have to have different regulations at different levels, you don't have different groups lobbying for special deals, you don't have to worry about making sure your language is so tight that lobbyists can't find their way around. It's the only solution.

 

Not happening.

 

And no, just because you use a different font doesn't mean you have my support. The bill needs to be simpler, and it needs to target more than just insurance. It can be shorter AND fix how bills are created and also regulate the insurance industry at the same time.

[Y2HH]

How do you plan on fixing the "engine" without tacking on an additional several thousand pages?

 

Can be done.

 

The constitution is shorter than this, and covers a LOT more ground.

[Balta1701]

It can be shorter AND fix how bills are created and also regulate the insurance industry at the same time.

Really, if you got rid of things like the Nebraska deal (which will be killed on reconciliation), you could probably cut out about 10% of the pages, but there's no way to reform this system in the way that it needs to be reformed in a length that will make you happy other than starting from scratch.

[Y2HH]

Throw it all out and establish a fully government run universal system. You kill off 90% of the pages because you don't have to have different regulations at different levels, you don't have different groups lobbying for special deals, you don't have to worry about making sure your language is so tight that lobbyists can't find their way around. It's the only solution.

 

No matter how tight they word these bills they seem to find they're way around it anyway.

 

I relate this to Microsoft's endless attempts to prevent piracy with code so tight and controlled via verification communications of multiple sorts to validate the end user license, that it should be IMPOSSIBLE to crack. Only it's cracked before they even get to release it.

 

The only thing Microsoft ends up doing is making life harder on their actual paying customers, and the pirates still go free on their merry way with less obstacles than the standard user has to put up with.

[Y2HH]

Really, if you got rid of things like the Nebraska deal (which will be killed on reconciliation), you could probably cut out about 10% of the pages, but there's no way to reform this system in the way that it needs to be reformed in a length that will make you happy other than starting from scratch.

 

That bothers me...things like "the Nebraska deal" should have never existed. Either people are for this or not...but the outright placement of "payoffs and buying of votes" right in the bill is just Government run amok.

 

It shouldn't even come to reconciling it out -- it shouldn't have EVER been put in there. The fact it was is a slap in the face of everything congress/senate is supposed to stand for.

[Balta1701]

It shouldn't even come to reconciling it out -- it shouldn't have EVER been put in there. The fact it was is a slap in the face of everything congress/senate is supposed to stand for.

A slap in the face for everything Congress is supposed to stand for? This type of horse-trading for local issues has been done for centuries. It makes for some bad policy, but let's not pretend that this is somehow unique. If you set up a system where a politician is going to be beholden to local voters, then you can't be surprised when that politician acts in the interest of his local voters. The only way around that would be to hold a proportional election system where there is no connection between local issues and their representative.

[Y2HH]

A slap in the face for everything Congress is supposed to stand for? This type of horse-trading for local issues has been done for centuries. It makes for some bad policy, but let's not pretend that this is somehow unique. If you set up a system where a politician is going to be beholden to local voters, then you can't be surprised when that politician acts in the interest of his local voters. The only way around that would be to hold a proportional election system where there is no connection between local issues and their representative.

 

I'm not pretending it's unique. It's bad practice, it's bad policy. What's worse is we are forced to 'accept that that's the way it is'.

 

A lot of people here seem to think I'm a republican, and I dislike them as much as I dislike the democrats...they're all bastards and both parties CONSTANTLY play these games.

Edited March 12, 2010 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

I'm not pretending it's unique. It's bad practice, it's bad policy. What's worse is we are forced to 'accept that that's the way it is'.

 

A lot of people here seem to think I'm a republican, and I dislike them as much as I dislike the democrats...they're all bastards and both parties CONSTANTLY play these games.

So...therefore you have a problem with the way the Constitution sets up Congress such that local interests can wind up dominating certain debates.

 

Perhaps if the Constitution was longer, we could have found a way around this.

 

(/rimshot)

[Y2HH]

So...therefore you have a problem with the way the Constitution sets up Congress such that local interests can wind up dominating certain debates.

 

Perhaps if the Constitution was longer, we could have found a way around this.

 

(/rimshot)

 

If you honestly believe that, then I honestly believe you're naive.

[southsider2k5]

Really, if you got rid of things like the Nebraska deal (which will be killed on reconciliation), you could probably cut out about 10% of the pages, but there's no way to reform this system in the way that it needs to be reformed in a length that will make you happy other than starting from scratch.

 

I love how that is covered up now as the "Nebraska deal", instead of what it actually is...