PrintBaucus bill runs 1500 pages
It isn't that big of a deal when you consider that the Democrats are already re-writing the bill anyway. But it certainly gives you an idea of the nightmare that Obamacare will be for the country.
Byron Wolf at ABC's The Note:
Democrats on the Finance Committee, citing a Committee precedent, argued that the Baucus bill was more understandable in conceptual language than in legislative language, and pointed out that the Baucus bill was never more than one of two bills informing the final product in the Senate - that new bill, which merges the Finance bill with the more liberal HELP Committee bill, is being written behind closed doors.The very fact that Congress is attempting something this large poses a danger to the concept of representative government. Unless you are an expert, the bill is gibberish. In effect, it hands the interpretation of Congressional intent directly to unelected bureaucrats with very little clear guidance from our representatives.Baucus, lead HELP Democrat Chris Dodd and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are set to meet this evening with representatives from the White House to chart their progress.
In other words - the Finance Committee worked for months to create a bill, which was then set aside as Democratic leaders went about writing it all over again.
The fact that the Baucus bill has been shelved as Democrats go about the bill merger process did not keep some poor soul at the Committee office from having to take the Baucus bill's conceptual language and turn it into legislative language.
The result, with larger font and margins and double spacing, swells the product from 262 pages to 1,502.
Even if most congressmen read the document, they couldn't possibly grasp all the ramifications, all the potential slippery slopes, or even exactly what the bill is trying to accomplish. The thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - of regulations that will come from whatever final bill is voted on will no doubt attempt to grasp congressional intent, but who's to say otherwise?
This bill is a fiscal, legislative, and regulatory nightmare - a trifecta of grief for taxpayers and anyone concerned about their health care. But "reform" has developed a momentum all its own and will be very hard to stop.
