Congress doesn’t understand the health-care legislation. But it’s important to pass it as quickly as possible.
This is beyond Lewis Carroll.
9 thoughts on “So Let’s Vote For It, Anyway”
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Congress doesn’t understand the health-care legislation. But it’s important to pass it as quickly as possible.
This is beyond Lewis Carroll.
Comments are closed.
I’m going to start referring to the President as Barack H. Dumpty.
As I see it, the biggest problem with Congresspeople voting on these huge bills without reading them is that they are confident they and their wives and children and closest friends won’t be hurt by them, and that it delivers necessary sops to their core constituencies. Beyond that, they couldn’t care less what’s in these bills. That’s the danger – they do not care if others get hurt or how, so long as they are taken care of by provisions buried somewhere in the thousand-plus pages. They are acting like royalty, not elected representatives of the people.
gtex
But Rand; if you only have 2 days and 2 lawyers, you don’ t have time to understand it. So what’s the point in trying?
What Leland said… furthermore, if you only have 100 days and 100 lawyers, you don’t have the intellect to understand it. So what’s the point in trying? Reform HAS TO GET DONE!
Plus, I have an earmark for my pony in the bill. Everybody should get a pony. Mine is an Appaloosa. Her name will be “Pretty Girl”.
*/ Snark off
Congressmen don’t have any idea how counter-insurgency warfare works (and many can’t explain the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam), but when people they trust tell them to spend $1T in Iraq and Afghanistan they don’t have trouble voting for that. Health care isn’t any different. There are people who understand the proposed reforms, and who have been thinking and writing about them for decades. With a few exceptions (e.g. Waxman and Wyden) they just don’t happen to be members of Congress.
Rand, I think you’ve mis-read the article. Olympia Snow, in the first paragraph, “admits she is stumped by the task of crafting a simple explanation for legislation of mind-numbing complexity.” (Emphasis mine.)
That does not mean she doesn’t understand the bill – it means she has a hard time explaining the bill in simple terms.
To Jim’s (somewhat off-point) point – complex issues are why Congress has committees. The committee members are supposed to “get smart” about their committee’s issues, and present and explain a plan to the rest of the Congress.
Hear, hear.
There’s also a great deal to be said for what is called in the British Parliament “dividing the question,” which means simplifying complicated bills precisely so that the various parts can be debated and voted on separately.
In my opinion if Congress is voting on legislation too complicated for them to understand, it’s almost certainly also too complicated to work — as advertised or not.
I doubt if she understands the bill. John Conyers admits that he doesn’t, but of couse, he’s never been the brightest bulb on the tree.
Yes, the committees should be more educated on the subject than others. But if they can’t interpret what the bill says, because they haven’t read it; then how will the average citizen understand it?
I know that several people don’t understand the CARS program. They think all they have to do is show up with an old car. They don’t know that only certain cars qualify as clunkers and only certain cars qualify as something you can buy. And that’s just a law that hands out $1 billion dollars.
CARS is not a law that takes over 1/6th the US economy and dictates how many Americans will receive their healthcare. I think such a bill should be very understandable and not so complicated as to be a waste of time to at least read. If fixing healthcare is so detrimental, then spend the time to do it right!