Y'all ain't reading this bill neither, Chumps.

[mhaze]

You mean, terrible before the 500 prime pieces of pork are added to it? Terrible in the form they let us look at it in? Which is not the form they will vote on?

If by that you mean terrible, gez, I'd hate to see the real thing.

Wait...no I didn't mean that. I'd like to see the real thing. Good comedy.

 

[Peephole]

The Baucas bill is terrible at any rate. Worse than doing nothing IMHO.

Not necessarily, some more financial aid, a public option and a better employer mandate and it'll become a decent bill. It all depends on how it proceeds through the Senate.

 

[Azure]

Not necessarily, some more financial aid, a public option and a better employer mandate and it'll become a decent bill. It all depends on how it proceeds through the Senate.

Public option as in another Medicare?

Yeah, that didn't cost 150x more than it was supposed too.

 

[Peephole]

A public option would mean a move towards a system that's able to save money in every other single country in the world.

But I guess there's always that American exceptionalism.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Ah. So your issue isn't with the Baucus Bill but with all bills as they go through this process. You don't like how Congress as a whole does things.

That makes more sense now...

At the same time, the Republicans (and presumably Mhaze) who suggested this rule change (which would make government bigger and far less efficient) are the very ones who complain that government is too big and inefficient.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Apologies if I was unclear.

Yeah, I think all bills should be posted in this matter as they emerge from committee onto the floor, with a delay for public access.

Current public access to the english-language summary versions is still a big improvement over say, one or two decades back.

This bill only illustrates the inanity of Baucus trying to make excuses for a temporary perceived gain. The weakness of the excuses is transparent.

What excuses? That it would take an enormous amount of time and energy to translate the working bill (the full text of which has been posted on the web for some time) into final legal version even though it's not a final version, hasn't even made it to the Senate floor yet? On that point, you're wrong. It really will take some time to do that at this stage. And it would be wasted time and effort since the bill hasn't reached a finalized state yet.

I'm not saying that while the bills are being gamed, and a hundred variations are being contemplated, that the hundred variations should be public.

You're not? Then what are you saying? That is exactly the issue. The current state of the bill (that is, in committee) is when many variations are being contemplated. In fact, it's even likely to change after it reaches the full Senate.

I don't think you (or the sponsors of this rule change) thought this thing through very thoroughly. It would result in an enormous waste of time and effort for no gain whatsoever.

Again, do you think the members of the Senate Finance Committee are voting on something without knowing what's in it (or, I should say, without being able to know what's in it)? Are you saying that the working version of it (which has been posted the web for some time now) is inaccurate on some point?

How come this wasn't an issue, for example, when the Republican controlled Congress passed the industry-friendly Energy Bill or the industry-friendly Medicare Reform Act (2003)? Are you suggesting that the legislative process is less transparent now than it was then?

ETA: In the interests of disclosure, I'm not in favor of the Baucus Bill.

 

[WildCat]

Public option as in another Medicare?

Yeah, that didn't cost 150x more than it was supposed too.

Are you one of those people who think Medicare should have remained at $60 million per year? That would leave $2 and some change for every person older than 65.

"Here's your $2 grandma, now go get that cancer cured!"

 

[WildCat]

Not necessarily, some more financial aid, a public option and a better employer mandate and it'll become a decent bill. It all depends on how it proceeds through the Senate.

I've detailed just one of the glaring problems of the Baucas bill here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154772

 

[leftysergeant]

You mean, terrible before the 500 prime pieces of pork are added to it? Terrible in the form they let us look at it in? Which is not the form they will vote on?

It sucked from the get-go.

 

[Azure]

A public option would mean a move towards a system that's able to save money in every other single country in the world.

But I guess there's always that American exceptionalism.

You mean like Medicare? A lot of money saving going on with that system.

 

[Azure]

Are you one of those people who think Medicare should have remained at $60 million per year? That would leave $2 and some change for every person older than 65.

"Here's your $2 grandma, now go get that cancer cured!"

No, I'm one of the people that points out that government run health care plans like Medicare usually cost more than originally estimated.

As for what kind of insurance I would want? For the US? Something like the Swiss. For Canada? Something like France.

 

[Azure]

It sucked from the get-go.

Pretty much inevitable that a bill of this magnitude would turn into a colossal screwup.

 

[leftysergeant]

Pretty much inevitable that a bill of this magnitude would turn into a colossal screwup.

You missed an important fact. Baucus is a Democrat in name only. He's a Blue Dog. (Which, lately, has come to be defined as a Blue Cross Lapdog.)

 

[TriskettheKid]

And you realize that that doesn't happen while the bill is in committee, don't you? The version that gets a floor vote isn't what we're talking about.

Do you propose someone spend the absurd number of hours necessary to make some 500 different legalese versions while the thing is in committee? (Actually, it could be much higher than that. The thing could exist with any combination of zero to all 500 proposed changes. What is that, 500! different versions?)

ETA: Do you really think there's a problem with committee members not knowing what's in the bill? (See the links in my first post on this thread.)

Just to give people an idea of that number, it would be (roughly) 1.22x10¹¹³⁴.

As a comparison, I believe there are an estimated 1x10⁸⁰ atoms in the universe.

And for another comparison, taking the age of the universe to be 13.7 billion years, it means 4.32x10¹⁷ seconds have passed since the start.

 

[leftysergeant]

Pretty much inevitable that a bill of this magnitude would turn into a colossal screwup.

Bear in mind that I was referring specificly to the Baucus debacle. The other committees turned out bills less obesient to the insurance companies.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Just to give people an idea of that number, it would be (roughly) 1.22x10¹¹³⁴.

As a comparison, I believe there are an estimated 1x10⁸⁰ atoms in the universe.

And for another comparison, taking the age of the universe to be 13.7 billion years, it means 4.32x10¹⁷ seconds have passed since the start.

Surely since each amendment either will or will not be in the bill, it should be 2⁵⁰⁰, not factorial 500 --- that is, a mere 3x10¹⁵⁰.

 

[Peephole]

As for what kind of insurance I would want? For the US? Something like the Swiss.

Which is what I though most of the plans were headed towards?

 

[applecorped]

LOL, pwned.

Yes, Baucus was.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Just to give people an idea of that number, it would be (roughly) 1.22x10¹¹³⁴.

As a comparison, I believe there are an estimated 1x10⁸⁰ atoms in the universe.

And for another comparison, taking the age of the universe to be 13.7 billion years, it means 4.32x10¹⁷ seconds have passed since the start.

Well done!

To be fair, though, I doubt that the 500 or so amendments being discussed are all actually independent and non-overlapping.

Still--it would probably require a billion dollar or so government expenditure and would probably employ everyone in the country capable of legal writing.

And it would not improve the understanding of the bill by the members of the Senate Finance Committee even a little bit.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Surely since each amendment either will or will not be in the bill, it should be 2⁵⁰⁰, not factorial 500 --- that is, a mere 3x10¹⁵⁰.

I was offering all the permutations--meaning each different sequence of the included amendments would result in a legally distinct document.

At any rate, I don't think the amendments are all independent anyway, so the number might be only a few hundred versions of the bill that MHaze thinks should be written up in legalese and published.

Still not exactly the most efficient use of time and resources by the government! Especially since that additional cost would result in zero benefit (no one's understanding of the bill would be improved by such a project).