US health care bill passes the Senate

[Simon_Jester]

As well it's the new model congress, to say it's double spaced and has a ton of white space is an understatement. The total number of words in the longer House bill was 363,086 if you count table of contents and the index. Minus that you end up in the 250k word range. Which is the same word count as... your average Harry Potter book. It comes under your average Wheel of Time book. But the page count is inflated by the large font (Standard 18 on the pages and 24 for headers) and the amount of whitespace.

*Edit
Your average wheel of time book which is 340k words long which weighs in at 800 pages.

Which is still kind of ridiculous. Novels can afford to be huge because you don't have to remember every damn word, or even every damn sentence; most of it doesn't really matter except to frame the characters, scenery, and plot in your mind.

A law, on the other hand, makes every individual clause something that you can be punished for ignoring. Which means that for a major organization to be fully compliant with this law, you either have to work with the book in your lap and pray the index is reliable, or memorize a document the size of a Harry Potter book. Several Harry Potter books, because most of the law is, as you say, references to other similar laws.

Which means that breaking the law becomes frighteningly easy, and frighteningly hard to enforce without an army of auditors going over everything. And that's a general problem, not one specific to this bill.

Would anyone care to explain exactly why the fuck individual mandates are a part of this bill? I certainly can't figure it out.

At a guess: stupidity. Or someone who wanted them there bribed a bunch of very bad people to hold up the bill until they were included.

Given the general process by which this bill was written, statistically speaking, it's probably one of those.

[SirNitram]

I'm not feeling this oft-claimed 'This is worse off' mantra.

The income percentage for premiums will be 8%. The cap for out-of-pocket is 10%. 18%, let's say, is the amount someone making over 66k has to shell out. But this is meaningless unless we examine the status quo.

Census.gov puts the median income of a family of four in 2008 at 67k. The Commonwealth Fund puts the average premium in 2008 at 12,298. 17.9%.

So just these aspects of the bill.. Chop your medical bills heavily.

Finally, if you refuse to hand over 18% maximum for health care.. You pay 2% to the IRS. And consider it a down-payment on your inevitable health problems where you didn't pay into the system.

[MKSheppard]

Have you gone and read the latest versions Sheppard of the U.S. Statues and not what we did in 1945? You must understand if we don't give a shit about how many laws we had six decades ago.

I find it amazing that 1,700 pages was enough to fill two years of the biggest war in the history of the world for the world's greatest deliberative body; but now we have to fill out 2,000 pages for a simple health care bill in 2009.

Sheppard why can you not grasp the fact that the amount of legalese in bills has gone up a massive amount since 1945?

Perhaps the legalese IS the goddamned problem? Perhaps it's the goddamn reason why the US government is so bloatedly inefficient? Because due to the goddamn lawyers, we have to lay out budgets line item by line item, instead of simply saying "I allocate x dollars to the U.S. Navy to build 400,000 tons of carriers." or "the Post Department shall receive x dollars, and that salaries for postmasters shall be y and letter carriers z."

[Themightytom]

Have you gone and read the latest versions Sheppard of the U.S. Statues and not what we did in 1945? You must understand if we don't give a shit about how many laws we had six decades ago.

I find it amazing that 1,700 pages was enough to fill two years of the biggest war in the history of the world for the world's greatest deliberative body; but now we have to fill out 2,000 pages for a simple health care bill in 2009.

Health care isn't simple.

Sheppard why can you not grasp the fact that the amount of legalese in bills has gone up a massive amount since 1945?

Perhaps the legalese IS the goddamned problem? Perhaps it's the goddamn reason why the US government is so bloatedly inefficient? Because due to the goddamn lawyers, we have to lay out budgets line item by line item, instead of simply saying "I allocate x dollars to the U.S. Navy to build 400,000 tons of carriers." or "the Post Department shall receive x dollars, and that salaries for postmasters shall be y and letter carriers z."

Right THATS the problem and not the assholes who fuck the government over to make a buck. Remember all the money we dumped into Iraq that got either lost, or completely misused? Remember when we DIDN'T regulate the bailout money and bank execs renovated their offices to the tune of millions? The line items are their because assholes prevail in the government contract world and there's no sense of patriotism in terms of "You know what, I'm doing a government contract for my country, I will do a good job and charge a fair price" as opposed to: HOLY SHIT! SUITCASES OF MONEY! HOW MUCH CAN WE SELL THE SUITCASES FOPR??

[J]

Remember when we DIDN'T regulate the bailout money and bank execs renovated their offices to the tune of millions? The line items are their because assholes prevail in the government contract world and there's no sense of patriotism in terms of "You know what, I'm doing a government contract for my country, I will do a good job and charge a fair price" as opposed to: HOLY SHIT! SUITCASES OF MONEY! HOW MUCH CAN WE SELL THE SUITCASES FOPR??

The TARP/EESA bailout bill from last year was 451 pages. The stimulus bill this spring was around 750 pages. Both of them were abused like $5 whores. Adding more pages to a bill isn't going to stop the abuse, in fact I'd argue it adds more room for lobbyists to sneak in loopholes and handouts for their own personal benefit. Afterall, do you honestly think Congress is going to read through all 2000 pages before voting on the bill? I could likely bury a billion dollar handout for my alma mater in there and have it passed without notice.

[MKSheppard]

Health care isn't simple.

Neither is building the greatest navy in the history of the world before or since then.

Example:

July 19, 1940
(H.R. 10100)
(Public, No. 757)

AN ACT

To establish the composition of the United States Navy, to authorize the construction of certain naval vessels, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the authorized composition of the United States Navy in under-age vessels as established by the Acts of May 17, 1938 (52 Stat. 401), and June 14, 1940, Public Law Numbered 629, Seventy-sixth Congress, is hereby further increased by one million three hundred and twenty-five thousand tons, as follows :

(a) Capital ships, three hundred and eighty-five thousand tons;

(b) Aircraft carriers, two hundred thousand tons;

(c) Cruisers, four hundred and twenty thousand tons;

(d) Destroyers, two hundred and fifty thousand tons;

(e) Submarines, seventy thousand tons: Provided, That each of the foregoing increases in tonnages for capital ships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines may be varied upward or downward in the amount of 30 per centum of the total increased tonnage authorized herein so long as the sum of the total increases in tonnages of these classes as authorized herein is not exceeded.

Sec. 2. The President of the United States is hereby authorized to construct such vessels, including replacements authorized by the Act of March 27, 1934 (48 Stat. 503), as may be necessary to provide the total under-age composition authorized in section 1 of this Act.

Sec. 3. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, such sums as may be necessary to effectuate the purposes of this Act. including not to exceed $150,000,000 for essential equipment and facilities at either private or naval establishments for building or equipping any complete naval vessel or portion thereof herein or heretofore authorized, $65,000,000 for essential equipment and facilities for the manufacture of ordnance material or munitions at either private or naval establishments, and $35,000,000 for the expansion of facilities for the production of armor at either private or naval establishments. The authority herein granted for essential equipment and facilities, and for the expansion of facilities, shall include the authority to acquire lands at such locations as the Secretary of the Navy with the approval of the President may deem best suited to the purpose, erect buildings, and acquire the necessary machinery and equipment.

Sec. 4. The allocation and contracts for construction of the vessels herein authorized shall be in accordance with the terms and conditions provided by the Act of March 27, 1934 (48 Stat, 503), as amended.

Sec. 5. The President of the United States is hereby further authorized to acquire and convert or to undertake the construction of—

(a) Patrol, escort, and miscellaneous craft at a total cost not to exceed $50,000.000; and

(b) One hundred thousand tons of auxiliary vessels of such size, type, and design as he may consider best suited for the purposes of national defense.

Sec. 6. The provisions of the Act of March 27, 1934 (48 Stat. 504), requiring not less than 10 per centum of the aircraft, including the engines therefor, procured subsequent to that Act to be constructed or manufactured in Government aircraft factories or other plants or factories owned and operated by the United States Government, shall not operate to curtail procurement so long as production at the said Government plants and factories is maintained at the limit of their capacity as determined by the Secretary of the Navy.

Sec. 7. No vessel, ship, or boat (except ships' boats) now in the United States Navy or being built or hereafter built therefor shall bo disposed of by sale or otherwise, or be chartered or scrapped, except as now provided by law.

Sec. 8. The President of the United States is hereby authorized to acquire or construct naval airplanes, and spare part's and equipment, as may be necessary to provide and maintain the number of useful naval airplanes at a total of fifteen thousand: Provided, That if, in the judgment of the Secretary of the Navy, the total number of airplanes authorized herein is not sufficient to meet the needs of the national defense, he may, with the approval of the President, make such plans for procurement as the situation may demand.

Approved, July 19, 1940.

That's it, that's the ENTIRE two ocean Navy bill.

Wow, such simplicity.

Right THATS the problem and not the assholes who fuck the government over to make a buck.

That's why you simply have a congressional oversight committee that semi regularly calls out each branch of the government to examine it's books to examine the spending. I think a good name would be....the Second Truman Commission.

[Serafine666]

Criticism of the bill based on the number of pages of text is so asinine as to be almost unbelievable. It instantly belies a complete ignorance of not only the nature of the reform but of the unavoidable process of government in a bitterly divided legislature that I am frankly astonished that anyone would bring it up as a legitimate point, let alone compare it to a completely different spending bill from 65 years ago. It's the epitome of the style-over-substance showboating that passes for legitimate political debate in this country.

Yet according to the Democrats, we need over 100x the number of pages of blathering before they can create utopia.

You must be joking. There are many baffling stupidities compressed into this short sentence, but the two main ones are that this quote implies that you think A) the Democrats are a unified bloc, B) they regard this as an ideal bill. Both of these are self-evidently wrong to anyone with eyes, ears, and a passing interest in politics.

A) Which party is taking the lead on this bill and advocating for it and pushing it? Democrats. Yet you think it ignorant to refer to the people pushing for its passage as "Democrats." Please, do go on.
B) Stop and think a moment, Garibaldi. The original writers of the bill had to drop the things they regard as ideal from it; said writers are all Democrats and it is accurate to refer to their wishes for the bill they wrote as a utopia they wish to pursue. Said things would require additional pages of legislation to put in place. If returned to the bill, the bill would be much larger and be the ideal of those that wrote it and are providing the strongest ideological thrust to pass it. Thus, "we need over 100x the number of pages of blathering before they can create utopia" is emphatically NOT stupid and certainly not "self-evidently wrong."

[Simon_Jester]

B) Stop and think a moment, Garibaldi. The original writers of the bill had to drop the things they regard as ideal from it; said writers are all Democrats and it is accurate to refer to their wishes for the bill they wrote as a utopia they wish to pursue.

No, it is not. "Utopia" is a word that strictly means "nowhere," as in an ideal paradise that does not exist anywhere in the world. It carries overtones of political idealism: if only we could do things this way, we could live in paradise!

This is a grotesque distortion of the health care plans called for by the Democrats (hell, even by the one and only outright socialist in the Senate, Bernie Sanders). They are not calling for a thing that exists nowhere. They are calling for a thing that exists in dozens of places, that has been tried repeatedly with great success, in countries that have virtually nothing in common except that they have public health care systems.

Thus, the health care system desired by even the most extreme of Democrats cannot honestly be called "utopia," because unlike a utopia, it actually exists. You should know this already.

Said things would require additional pages of legislation to put in place. If returned to the bill, the bill would be much larger

This is not evidently true, and may even be evidently not true. A more ambitious bill may actually be shorter than a less ambitious bill if the more ambitious bill abstracts out the details to the executive branch (as did the naval appropriations bill Shep keeps citing).
__________

Health care isn't simple.

Neither is building the greatest navy in the history of the world before or since then...

That's it, that's the ENTIRE two ocean Navy bill.
Wow, such simplicity.

Yes. And do you know how they did it? For starters there wasn't a big pile of existing laws on the books to be modified when they built new warships. You could actually say: "We hereby give the Navy X million dollars to build Y thousand tons of battleships," and that would be enough, at least in theory. If the Navy misused the funds, you hauled the Secretary of the Navy before Congress and grilled him, without getting any nonsense about "executive privilege" like Nixon or Bush Junior (or, hell, Clinton) tried to pull. The complexity of building the fleet could safely be abstracted out to the executive branch, as are the penalties for doing it wrong.

Do you want to do the same thing here? Because we could probably have a pretty short bill if we just said "We hereby give the Department of Health X billion dollars a year to provide a national single-payer health care system." Maybe not as short as the 1940 special naval appropriations bill, but a lot shorter. We'd have the same advantage of being able to delegate the details of enforcement and implementation (all the paperwork that needs to be done to build the ships) to civil servants in the executive branch.

Of course, the downside (from your point of view, at least) is that we'd pretty much have to go for single-payer health care plan to get the desired effect, just as the 1940 special naval appropriations were a single-payer warship construction plan. There was no complicated bullshit about forcing every citizen to pay money into a subscription to build warships or get hit with extra taxes, no need to bribe various other ship-buyers into submission.

Back then, people could afford to cut the crap and do appropriations for major programs in a simple way because they were willing to do it, even if that meant paying the extra cost and stepping on some toes. If you want that kind of sentiment to be a part of American politics again, I suggest you take it up with Mitch McConnell.

[Serafine666]

No, it is not. "Utopia" is a word that strictly means "nowhere," as in an ideal paradise that does not exist anywhere in the world. It carries overtones of political idealism: if only we could do things this way, we could live in paradise!

Figures I'd run across someone who actually knows the literal meaning of the word...

This is a grotesque distortion of the health care plans called for by the Democrats (hell, even by the one and only outright socialist in the Senate, Bernie Sanders). They are not calling for a thing that exists nowhere. They are calling for a thing that exists in dozens of places, that has been tried repeatedly with great success, in countries that have virtually nothing in common except that they have public health care systems.

Thus, the health care system desired by even the most extreme of Democrats cannot honestly be called "utopia," because unlike a utopia, it actually exists. You should know this already.

...but I was using the word "utopia" in a more general way, the way that the typical person (who hasn't the slightest clue who penned the book of the same name nor the literal meaning of the word) would understand it: an ideal reality or place. Clearly, the Universal Health Care systems of other nations are the ideal reality of those who created this reform.

This is not evidently true, and may even be evidently not true. A more ambitious bill may actually be shorter than a less ambitious bill if the more ambitious bill abstracts out the details to the executive branch (as did the naval appropriations bill Shep keeps citing).

It's evidently true outside some abstract possible ideal of concise and efficient bill-making. The bill with the public option was longer than the bill with the public option removed and thus, adding the public option would inevitably result in the bill returning to its larger original size.

[Simon_Jester]

No, it is not. "Utopia" is a word that strictly means "nowhere," as in an ideal paradise that does not exist anywhere in the world. It carries overtones of political idealism: if only we could do things this way, we could live in paradise!

Figures I'd run across someone who actually knows the literal meaning of the word...

You did too, right?

...but I was using the word "utopia" in a more general way, the way that the typical person (who hasn't the slightest clue who penned the book of the same name nor the literal meaning of the word) would understand it: an ideal reality or place. Clearly, the Universal Health Care systems of other nations are the ideal reality of those who created this reform.

In that case, anyone who wants to do anything is being "utopian," because they always have some goal, some desired end state, some "ideal reality." The only way not to be "utopian" would be to have no goals and want to leave absolutely everything the way it is. The word "utopian" could mean anything, and therefore means nothing.

So I think you're using the word very badly here, as a way to sneer at people who want to change the health care system, without paying attention to whether it fits. Here, it doesn't fit. The people pushing for changes in the American health care system don't claim their changes would make everything perfect, and have dozens of concrete examples to point to in order to prove that their plans can work.

It's like calling someone "utopian" for thinking they can build a highway overpass to replace an intersection people keep crashing and getting killed on or something...

It's evidently true outside some abstract possible ideal of concise and efficient bill-making. The bill with the public option was longer than the bill with the public option removed and thus, adding the public option would inevitably result in the bill returning to its larger original size.

...All of which comes from trying to nail down the details of the legislation in the bill, rather than saying "Here's X tons of money to accomplish result Y" and leaving the executive branch to do the rest... including the reams of administrative by-laws and paperwork that they will have to produce to fill in the details the legislature skipped over.

Anyone who isn't willing to do that shouldn't complain about how much longer the bills are when we don't do that.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Actually, Shep is right, he's just using horrible examples. Check out the size of the Canadian authorization for universal healthcare--it was about 70 pages long.

[Instant Sunrise]

Actually, Shep is right, he's just using horrible examples. Check out the size of the Canadian authorization for universal healthcare--it was about 70 pages long.

I think you added an extra zero there.

The bill itself is fourteen pages long, but it's bilingual, so it's really seven pages in English and seven pages in French.

[Serafine666]

You did too, right?

Of course I knew what it means.

So I think you're using the word very badly here, as a way to sneer at people who want to change the health care system, without paying attention to whether it fits. Here, it doesn't fit. The people pushing for changes in the American health care system don't claim their changes would make everything perfect, and have dozens of concrete examples to point to in order to prove that their plans can work.

It's like calling someone "utopian" for thinking they can build a highway overpass to replace an intersection people keep crashing and getting killed on or something...

Yes, the usage was inappropriate to the audience although I see significant differences between improved reality and ideal reality. Aiming at a simple reduction in healthcare costs is aiming for an improved reality; going beyond that to UHC is pursuit of an ideal reality and a significant number of Democrats really and truly were trying to achieve an ideal. In other settings, this might be called "ambition" which is generally a good thing.

...All of which comes from trying to nail down the details of the legislation in the bill, rather than saying "Here's X tons of money to accomplish result Y" and leaving the executive branch to do the rest... including the reams of administrative by-laws and paperwork that they will have to produce to fill in the details the legislature skipped over.

Anyone who isn't willing to do that shouldn't complain about how much longer the bills are when we don't do that.

Which, by implication, gives my complaint legitimacy since I am emphatically willing to do that.

[Simon_Jester]

You did too, right?

Of course I knew what it means.

Then why did you abuse it that way?

Yes, the usage was inappropriate to the audience although I see significant differences between improved reality and ideal reality. Aiming at a simple reduction in healthcare costs is aiming for an improved reality; going beyond that to UHC is pursuit of an ideal reality and a significant number of Democrats really and truly were trying to achieve an ideal. In other settings, this might be called "ambition" which is generally a good thing.

But in this case, the "ideal" condition is in no way a "utopia." It's something that already exists in other countries. It may be unrealistic to expect to get all the way there in one go, but that doesn't make the notion that we ought to be there impractical, except in the sense that failing to account for the stupidity and bad faith of one's countrymen is impractical.
______

...All of which comes from trying to nail down the details of the legislation in the bill, rather than saying "Here's X tons of money to accomplish result Y" and leaving the executive branch to do the rest... including the reams of administrative by-laws and paperwork that they will have to produce to fill in the details the legislature skipped over.

Anyone who isn't willing to do that shouldn't complain about how much longer the bills are when we don't do that.

Which, by implication, gives my complaint legitimacy since I am emphatically willing to do that.

So... you favor single-payer health care, then?

Basically, my comments were aimed at both you and Shep; if you and Shep favor single-payer health care administered by the Department of Health then I totally agree, the bill was too long compared to what it ought to have been. But it was longer than it should have been in large part because it wasn't what it should have been, thanks to stupidity and bad faith on the part of the opponents of health care reform in this country. Not because "bills are too long these days," though they may very well be.

[aerius]

Or looking at it another way, all 3300 registered healthcare lobbyists need to be cut a slice of the pie in the bill so you really do need 2000+ pages to make sure their bribes lobbying efforts are properly rewarded.

[Surlethe]

I'm not feeling this oft-claimed 'This is worse off' mantra.

The income percentage for premiums will be 8%. The cap for out-of-pocket is 10%. 18%, let's say, is the amount someone making over 66k has to shell out. But this is meaningless unless we examine the status quo.

Census.gov puts the median income of a family of four in 2008 at 67k. The Commonwealth Fund puts the average premium in 2008 at 12,298. 17.9%.

So just these aspects of the bill.. Chop your medical bills heavily.

Finally, if you refuse to hand over 18% maximum for health care.. You pay 2% to the IRS. And consider it a down-payment on your inevitable health problems where you didn't pay into the system.

I'm not sure I follow your argument. Fix income at 67k. Are you saying that a family will be required to pay at least 8% of their income for insurance and at most 10%? If so, how does it follow that you'll be paying at most 18%? And if you decide to flout the law, you'll be taxed an additional 2% of your income?

[Qwerty 42]

The healthcare bill is too long, there's no doubt about that, but at the same time, bills passed by the legislature in wartime are going to be shorter because the executive wields more power. Even looking at the act that Sheppard posted, a large amount of the text is just handing power to the President. If it were Congress's responsibility to hammer out every single detail of the fleet, as they are with the health care reform, the legislation would be substantially longer, especially given that this particular healthcare plan involves a labyrinthine, patchwork combination of several different insurance plans.

[SirNitram]

I'm not feeling this oft-claimed 'This is worse off' mantra.

The income percentage for premiums will be 8%. The cap for out-of-pocket is 10%. 18%, let's say, is the amount someone making over 66k has to shell out. But this is meaningless unless we examine the status quo.

Census.gov puts the median income of a family of four in 2008 at 67k. The Commonwealth Fund puts the average premium in 2008 at 12,298. 17.9%.

So just these aspects of the bill.. Chop your medical bills heavily.

Finally, if you refuse to hand over 18% maximum for health care.. You pay 2% to the IRS. And consider it a down-payment on your inevitable health problems where you didn't pay into the system.

I'm not sure I follow your argument. Fix income at 67k. Are you saying that a family will be required to pay at least 8% of their income for insurance and at most 10%? If so, how does it follow that you'll be paying at most 18%? And if you decide to flout the law, you'll be taxed an additional 2% of your income?

1) The 10% cap is on out-of-pocket expenses: money you pay out that the insurance didn't cover completely. Premium + Out of pocket is pretty much your medical bill.

2) If you do not buy insurance, you pay 2% of your income... Period. No 18% extra.

[Surlethe]

Ah, got it. Premium capped at 8% of income (remainder subsidized, I assume?), out-of-pocket capped at 10%.

If the premium is more than 2% of income and insurance can't deny pre-existing conditions, why would you buy insurance instead of paying the fee? That way, if something happens, you can just sign up for insurance at the doctor's office, have them pay out for you, then drop the insurance afterward.

[Spin Echo]

Perhaps the legalese IS the goddamned problem? Perhaps it's the goddamn reason why the US government is so bloatedly inefficient? Because due to the goddamn lawyers, we have to lay out budgets line item by line item, instead of simply saying "I allocate x dollars to the U.S. Navy to build 400,000 tons of carriers." or "the Post Department shall receive x dollars, and that salaries for postmasters shall be y and letter carriers z."

I feel funny inside. Shep is making sense to me.

There have been studies showing partly why Scandinavia does so well is that it relies more heavily on social capital instead of complicated legal documents. Similar to the Canadian health care bill, the Norwegian health care bill is 15 pages long. This departure from excessive legalities has been a breath of fresh air and, of course, only makes it more frustrating when I have to, say, file my taxes and the instructions for the basic 2 page tax form is 174 pages long.

[SirNitram]

Ah, got it. Premium capped at 8% of income (remainder subsidized, I assume?), out-of-pocket capped at 10%.

No. 8% is for the folks with no subsidies at all. Subsidies reduce it below 8%.

If the premium is more than 2% of income and insurance can't deny pre-existing conditions, why would you buy insurance instead of paying the fee? That way, if something happens, you can just sign up for insurance at the doctor's office, have them pay out for you, then drop the insurance afterward.

This, I have no idea of.

[Simon_Jester]

Perhaps the legalese IS the goddamned problem? Perhaps it's the goddamn reason why the US government is so bloatedly inefficient? Because due to the goddamn lawyers, we have to lay out budgets line item by line item, instead of simply saying "I allocate x dollars to the U.S. Navy to build 400,000 tons of carriers." or "the Post Department shall receive x dollars, and that salaries for postmasters shall be y and letter carriers z."

I feel funny inside. Shep is making sense to me.

Trouble is, the lawyers aren't really the problem here. The problem is the desire to detail what the money will be spent on, which is more because of lobbyists than because of lawyers or "legalese."

[Phantasee]

The Canada Health Act doesn't set up a health care system. All it does is establish some rules for the provinces to follow if they want to get transfer payments from the Federal government. Requirements:

7. In order that a province may qualify for a full cash contribution referred to in section 5 for a fiscal year, the health care insurance plan of the province must, throughout the fiscal year, satisfy the criteria described in sections 8 to 12 respecting the following matters:
(a) public administration;
(b) comprehensiveness;
(c) universality;
(d) portability; and
(e) accessibility.

Full text is available here: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-6/FullText.html
The actual health care system, in Alberta?
http://www.health.alberta.ca/about/heal ... ation.html

Over 30 laws and 100 schedules of regulations, rules, standards and bylaws govern health care in Alberta. Below are listed the Acts and Regulations, Ministerial Orders and Orders in Council, Approved Hospitals, and Health Standards. This list has been provided for your convenience.

That's for a population of 3.6 million people on 662 000 sq. km. In one jurisdiction. Each jurisdiction has a similar number of laws, regulations, and pages.

Combined, I'm sure Canada's health care laws take up more than a couple thousand pages, if they were in size 18 font, double spaced, like the current bills in Congress appear to be.

[Serafine666]

But in this case, the "ideal" condition is in no way a "utopia." It's something that already exists in other countries. It may be unrealistic to expect to get all the way there in one go, but that doesn't make the notion that we ought to be there impractical, except in the sense that failing to account for the stupidity and bad faith of one's countrymen is impractical.

"Utopian" can be a very situational thing. It would be utopian for Belgium to believe itself able to virtually singlehandedly invade Iraq and move it off the front pages in 6-7 years but it would not be utopian for a country like the United States, England, Russia, or China to assume this. In forgetting to account for dishonesty and duplicity, the concept of getting to UHC in a single go was utterly unrealistic.

So... you favor single-payer health care, then?[/qupte]
Not at all. You said that only someone willing to undertake the gargantuan effort required to slim down and streamline the language has a legitimate right to complain; since I'd regard that as an acceptable price, I was saying that my complaining is legitimate by the standard you set.

Basically, my comments were aimed at both you and Shep; if you and Shep favor single-payer health care administered by the Department of Health then I totally agree, the bill was too long compared to what it ought to have been. But it was longer than it should have been in large part because it wasn't what it should have been, thanks to stupidity and bad faith on the part of the opponents of health care reform in this country. Not because "bills are too long these days," though they may very well be.

I do not favor such a thing but the bill is still much too long; that the Senate bill includes a provision to funnel $300 million to Louisiana and about $100 million to Nebraska is well-known and both things written into the bill constitute unnecessary text that extend its length. Even if you only had to funnel perks and favors to part of the Senate, that is still length that is not needed to achieve the stated goal. My chief complaint, and I believe this is Shep's as well, is that the stated goal is actually very simple and there were no extremely complicated rule-ridden solutions to healthcare costs were mentioned to voters so the bill is unforgivably massive given what it is attempting to do. Now, if it is attempting to do OTHER things that were omitted from public disclosure, a longer bill is certainly justified but secret provisions of that sort would legitimate Republican whining about bad faith and deliberate lack of transparency. It would seem that neither possibility is especially complimentary: either the bill is ludicrously complicated and bloated with unnecessary pages or the bill has the bare minimum of pages needed to do what the writers want it to do... but the writers do not see the need to be honest with the voters about what they are attempting to accomplish.

[Simon_Jester]

"Utopian" can be a very situational thing. It would be utopian for Belgium to believe itself able to virtually singlehandedly invade Iraq and move it off the front pages in 6-7 years but it would not be utopian for a country like the United States, England, Russia, or China to assume this. In forgetting to account for dishonesty and duplicity, the concept of getting to UHC in a single go was utterly unrealistic.

Unrealistic (in the sense of "impractical") and utopian are not the same thing. To be utopian, an impractical idea must also be an unprecedented one, one that has not been realized in other times and places.

So... you favor single-payer health care, then?

Not at all. You said that only someone willing to undertake the gargantuan effort required to slim down and streamline the language has a legitimate right to complain; since I'd regard that as an acceptable price, I was saying that my complaining is legitimate by the standard you set.

In this case, the effort required includes delegating more of the details to the executive branch... which in this case would require single-payer health care. So long as we try to set the details at the legislative level, for whatever reasons, the bills wind up being huge.

I do not favor such a thing but the bill is still much too long; that the Senate bill includes a provision to funnel $300 million to Louisiana and about $100 million to Nebraska is well-known and both things written into the bill constitute unnecessary text that extend its length. Even if you only had to funnel perks and favors to part of the Senate, that is still length that is not needed to achieve the stated goal.

True. This length was not needed to achieve health care reform. It was only needed to counteract the bad faith of enemies of health care reform: in this case, of the senators from those states who refused to support the bill until given a suitable helping of pork. And also the bad faith of the forty Republican senators who stood in a block against all attempts at compromise... even after pretending that they wanted such a compromise as a tactic to get the supporters of health care reform to make less ambitious proposals, in the vain hope that at least one or two Republicans might be willing to play along.

My chief complaint, and I believe this is Shep's as well, is that the stated goal is actually very simple and there were no extremely complicated rule-ridden solutions to healthcare costs were mentioned to voters so the bill is unforgivably massive given what it is attempting to do. Now, if it is attempting to do OTHER things that were omitted from public disclosure, a longer bill is certainly justified but secret provisions of that sort would legitimate Republican whining about bad faith and deliberate lack of transparency. It would seem that neither possibility is especially complimentary: either the bill is ludicrously complicated and bloated with unnecessary pages or the bill has the bare minimum of pages needed to do what the writers want it to do... but the writers do not see the need to be honest with the voters about what they are attempting to accomplish.

The former seems more likely: the bill is ludicrously complicated and bloated, because a much simpler method of achieving the same (or better) results while cutting through reams of bullshit was off the table from the beginning, because the idea of single-payer health care makes so many powerful people in this country quake in terror for some reason.

Only a single-payer system can be explained simply, because only such a system can take the form "We will give agency X a pile of Y dollars to achieve Z." Otherwise, you will NEED to revise the exemptions and loopholes in the tax code, to revise regulations on the insurance agency, to revise any existing government programs that already take the XYZ format I mentioned, and so on. It's a lot messier to do it that way.

Imagine how complicated Shep's vaunted naval appropriations bill could have been if the whole thing had been done through an elaborate structure of public subscriptions with mandatory punishments for not paying into the subscription, as a way of funneling as much money as possible into private shipbuilding firms for fear of strengthening the public navy yards.