The State of the Union speech

[RubySlippers]

Why not? The president wussy man should have told the Democrats in Congress what HE wanted in a bill and hand them 400 black sheets telling them it must fit in this. Then be clear unless it gets done and on his desk by Christmas he will veto all legislation they want. Including raising the debt ceiling.

Health care bill on a under 50 pages could amount to this. The States shall provide all their citizen residents health care, paid for by a payroll tax and Medicaid funding and any reforms and laws needed. Failure to do so by 2014 will bar them from any discretionary Federal Funds until the State complies. Simple. And States could decide not to.

[Arhys]

The President is not a dictator and can't tell the legislative making branch of a democracy what to do in such a specific way while it remains a democracy.  And if state rights are so important surely each state deserves more than one page of explanation on how all those changes are to happen. 

[Trieste]

Calm down, please.

[RubySlippers]

My example mimics other legislation so the Federal Government can do it like I stated easily enough, and I noted in under 50 pages leaving some for some extra things like added Federal funding of Medicaid. But States wouldn't have to do anything and could impliment it anyway they wanted from insurance to a state health service but they could refuse. Just lose all Federal Funding unless they do outside of mandates.  ;)

As for the President that is the problem no backbone he is a wimp HE should have had a Health Care Plan in mind and placed it out there and keep is simple and not overly long 400 pages is fair, 2500+ pages is God speaking to us two and a half times over the history of the entire Biblical narrative. That scares people. You scare voters you get yelling people at Town Hall Meetings. Not my idea but something that would fix the basic problems.

[Arhys]

I'm sorry that comment was so abrupt and short, I truly didn't intend it to be so but see how it reads that way and appreciate the gentle moderation.  On second thought, maybe I really ought to be spanked--just a little?  *grin*

[Jude]

First of all, the Senate Healthcare Bill is not 2500+ pages.  It's 2074.

http://documents.nytimes.com/senate-health-care-bill

These are not pages packed full of content in paragraph form that read like a novel either.  Even when they get into the meat of the proposals everything seems to be triple-spaced with gigantic font, they only manage to get 20 lines in on a page and those don't even consist of full sentences.  If the formatting used was similar to a book, I can't imagine this even topping 1000 pages.

The first however many pages are the table of contents, there's tons of procedural language that actually doesn't say anything, and entire sections devoted to ironing out loopholes.  This is the way legislation has to be made so that various portions are clearly accessible, the document conforms to legal standards, and everything is written in a concise enough way that it doesn't turn into a legalistic nightmare.

If the bill was too short, it would become a gigantic burden on the court system or the Health Insurance Providers would search for loopholes.  Face it, you have to be verbose if you want to be concise.  Look also at the fact that they tried to do an enormous amount of things within the bill (as listed by the table of contents).  The length of the bill should not be a stumbling point; it's become one because the Republicans effectively made the argument that the American people don't know what's in it.  Obviously it's size makes that argument easier to make, but poor communication on the subject really sealed the deal.

However, I don't think this was the way to go about things necessarily either.  Issue by issue things should've been passed in smaller packages.  Make the Republicans vote no to pre-existing conditions separately from other issues if you really want to show the American people that they're being obstructionist and/or pass legislation that actually helps people.  I have to wonder why they went with the monolithic approach to begin with.

I've come to the sad conclusion that it was simply Democratic Senators looking to score a big win by pushing through a glut of changes that would give this congress a legacy to campaign on and look back at historically.  They wanted to make this their civil rights legislation and now they have next to nothing to work with a the 2010 elections will most likely be a third party/Republican landslide.  And yet I am not at all surprised.  The Democrats are by far the best part at getting in their own way.

[RubySlippers]

I think 400 pages is long enough for a decent bill. And will make them think on how to do it more efficiently. The big issue is that the average American sees 2000 pages and goes WTF?  :o

But States seem to want a say so I say give it to them and put the burden half on them to provide for their citizens Health Care with mechanisms to get them to do that which are proven to be Consititutional.

On another area jobs the best thing they could do is not spend money or cut taxes but provide Health Reform for those earning at or under 150% the Federal Poverty line alot of workers in my area of Florida fall into that. And cut layers of government regulation I have to point out if one runs a factory in my state you have to deal with city/township, county, State and Federal Laws for many areas. Couldn't they help business and give priority to say Federal Law only if they are stricter than state laws and the other way around if the state is stricter. That would seriously cut redtape and make businesses run smoother.

[Serephino]

I can't believe I'm saying this.... but Jude is actually right in this case.  Everything must be spelled out in minute detail.  That is how government works.  It's a sluggish process.  I think I remember reading that the average bill is around 800 pages for something simple.

I do agree that the way they're going about this is all wrong.  They really should start small, maybe with some regulation.  I also think it would be simpler to do a state by state thing.  Use the medicaid system already in place, and come up with a realistic income scale for premiums.  Of course they would need federal funding, and they'd have to get rid of the limits, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. 

[glimmertwin]

I challenge anyone to provide a link to an even reasonably detailed Republican health care proposal that passes as serious debate.  Honestly.

Not one amendment was offered in seriousness.  The bills were held up in committee by Republicans for months--who never even made a suggestion on the language.  Olympia Snowe had meetings for months, got everything she wanted, then backed out saying she felt rushed.  Not a single Republican came forward and said if you address this or that concern, I’ll cross the aisle to permit more American families to gain access to hospitals and doctors and the rest.

How about letting insurance companies sell across state lines?

[RubySlippers]

Because this is an area regulated state by state. If one supports states rights it won't work and since they deal with in-state networks you would have to go the doctors and the like in the others state if an HMO most likely.

[Arhys]

Selling insurance across state lines is/was already in the Senate bill, please see Section 1333 for details.