First, Obama never said that "any bill would be written in public." Here's what he has said re: transparency:
view linkThe office of the President has NO control over how bills are written, since they're written by senators and congresscritters. He DOES have some control over public debate, etc. (Not a lot -- again, laws are made in the legislative branch of gov't; he's in the executive branch -- maybe ams needs to review how US government actually WORKS.) So ams obviously has misunderstood the meaning and intent of "transparency." Oh wait -- ams is a fan of Hannity, Beck, et al -- that explains it.
And so what if it is $1 trillion? How much is life worth? I didn't see too many Republicans/conservativers shedding any tears over the $1+ trillion bailout of the banks and AIG. They seemed to think that government money used to bail out the banks (so they could pay $multi-million bonuses to the folks who got 'em into trouble) was just fine, but government money used to SAVE LIVES should be stopped.
According to the non-partisan CBO, " ... the House bill will
reduce the deficit by $30 billion over the first ten years (2010-2019) and continues to reduce the
deficit over the second ten year period (2020-2029). Furthermore, these reforms will provide
affordable coverage to 96 percent of Americans – and reform our private insurance system to lower
costs for all Americans and improve their coverage." So what's the problem? The bank bailout (under Bush, remember) didn't reduce the deficit by one thin dime. Where was ams then?
That same CBO also says that, instead of a government takeover of the health system, it "estimates private insurance participation will in fact increase as more Americans get insured under the legislation. The Health Insurance Exchange will offer consumers and small businesses many health insurance options to choose from – including private health insurance plans as well as a public health insurance plan financed by premiums."
I have to assume that ams is NOT participating in Medicare -- after all, that's government-run insurance, and that CAN'T be a good thing! ;-)
Here's the link for HR 3962:
view linkHere's a link to the US House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, which contains a summary of the bill, along with DOZENS of links to full text, more detailed summaries, side-by-side comparisons of the various bills, etc. (There's your transparency, ams ... )
view link(I don't know why I bother to rebut this stuff -- it's typical Republican nonsense -- they were in front of the cameras before the ink was even dry (like less than 10 minutes after HR 3962 was released) to let everyone know that it was worthless. ... )
