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| Finance Committee Democrat: Health Bill is "gibberish" |
| 2009-10-03 |
| (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Thomas Carper (D.-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not "expect" to read the actual legislative language of the committee's health care bill because it is "confusing" and that anyone who claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people. "I don't expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I've ever read in my life," Carper told CNSNews.com. Carper described the type of language the actual text of the bill would finally be drafted in as "arcane," "confusing," "hard stuff to understand," and "incomprehensible." He likened it to the "gibberish" used in credit card disclosure forms. Last week, the Finance Committee considered an amendment offered by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) that would have required the committee to post the full actual language of the proposed legislation online for at least 72 hours before holding a final committee vote on it. The committee defeated the amendment 13-10. Sometime in the wee hours of this morning, according to the Associated Press, the Finance Committee finished work on its health-care bill. "It was past 2 a.m. in the East--and Obama's top health care adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle in attendance--when Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee chairman, announced that work had been completed on all sections of the legislation." Thus far, however, the committee has not produced the actual legislative text of the bill. Instead the senators have been working with "conceptual language"—or what some committee members call a "plain English" summary or description of the bill. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who sits on the committee, told CNSNews.com on Thursday that the panel was just following its standard practice in working with a "plain language description" of the bill rather than an actual legislative text. "It's not just conceptual, it's a plain language description of the various provisions of the bill is what the Senate Finance Committee has always done when it passes legislation and that is turned into legislative language which is what is presented to the full Senate for consideration," said Bingaman. But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tx.), who also serves on the committee, said the descriptive language the committee is working with is not good enough because things can get slipped into the legislation unseen. "The conceptual language is not good enough," said Cornyn. "We've seen that there are side deals that have been cut, for example, with some special interest groups like the hospital association to hold them harmless from certain cuts that would impact how the CBO scores the bill or determines cost. So we need to know not only the conceptual language, we need to know the detailed legislative language, and we need to know what kind of secret deals have been cut on the side which would have an impact on how much this bill is going to cost and how it will affect health care in America." Carper said he would "probably" read the "plain English version" of the bill as opposed to the actual text. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 Gibberish is legalese which is why the legal ruling caste needs libraries to understand the common English of the American Constitution [or for that matter to corrupt the American Constitution into nothing more than a historical document overcome by special interest groups]. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-10-03 12:51 |
| #3 If Representatives are not smart enough to read and understand the legislation they should either be replaced by those who are, or they should hire writers smart enough to make the legislation understandable (and unambiguous) - but of course that would defeat the purpose. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-10-03 11:34 |
| #2 That's a feature, Fred, not a bug. The gibberish version will be interpreted by those 53 boards and panels, and it will say what they say it says. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2009-10-03 10:30 |
| #1 The "plain English" version is not what will be passed into law. The gibberish version will be passed. The "plain English" version will have no legal standing. The gibberish version will be picked over, interpreted, reinterpreted, and made to do precisely what the drafters and their co-religionists want it to do. |
| Posted by: Fred 2009-10-03 09:48 |