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GOP health care bill good first try

It’s easy to forget things, even important things, if we get distracted by challenges. That may explain why many have forgotten the compelling picture of the 7-foot stack of paper Sen. Mitch McConnell provided, representing Obama’s health care law, back in March 2013. According to the Washington Post report, “How many pages of regulations for Obamacare?” the 7-foot stack of 20,000 pages was an impressive visual of Obamacare at the time, although more regulations were still being written by unelected bureaucrats. No human person could read and understand that legislation in its entirety.

Then Nancy Pelosi infamously said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it…” Even though she protests now that she meant a version needed to be passed in the Senate so our congressional reps would have something in black and white to read, to understand and debate (Washington Post, “Pelosi defends her infamous health care remark”, by Capehart, June 20, 2012).

According to the report, only 14 days after she made that statement, President Obama signed Obamacare into law. So much for authentically desiring our reps to read, understand and debate what was at stake before voting in a bill that dominated so much of our economy.

I am not upset that the Republican attempt to replace Obamacare fell short the first time around. At least we see reports several read the bill, as contrasted to passing Obamacare without a single person being able to read it. While many reported good parts of “Ryancare,” they also needed more time to understand the impact of other issues it contained. Sounds healthy to me!

These large bills are so complex that we need several sharp minds debating them, marking them up, amending them, in order to come up with a version that is reasonably helpful.

A standing ovation for those who refused to vote for something as important as our heath care without having vital information and time to digest probable future impacts. Way to go! This approach has much more integrity than the prior administration’s way.

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