Senate Health Care Reform Bill Will Be Voted On Only With A Summary

in plain English.

Oh and it will also come with a complete Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of the bill before a committee vote on the legislation. But that's all you'll get.

So says the Senate Banking Committee chairman Max Baucus, who also wanted to tax Q-tips and tampons so that the uninsured Americans (and soon-to-be Americans) can get the government insurance.

Committee Spars over Transparency of Health Care Legislation
(9/23/09 Wall Street Journal)

"The Senate Finance Committee kicked off debate on its health bill today by sparring over a Republican proposal that would require lawmakers to post the legislation three days before they vote on it.

"The committee voted down an amendment by Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning to make the final legislative language available on the committee’s web site for 72 hours before members of the committee can vote on it. But it adopted a modified version of the amendment, proposed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, that requires the committee to post a plain-English summary with a complete Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of the bill before a vote on the legislation.

"In a back-and-forth that took up much of the morning session, Bunning and other Republicans argued that the legislation was too critical not to see the details before the vote. “It’s the most important bill I’ve seen in 24 years,” Bunning said. Americans also have been seeking details of the bill and should be able to see it too, he said."

How they take Americans for fools. Of course the devil is always in the details, not in a plain-English summary, and the Democratic chairman should know it full well.

Remember the antic that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used when the climate bill (H.R. 2454) was very narrowly passed back in June? The official copy of the bill was missing 300 pages on the day of the vote, and the 1000-page bill was dumped on the lawmakers who cared to read 10 hours before the session was to open.

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