I Cannot Read the Baucus Healthcare Bill

The Baucus Healthcare bill is out of committee and rushing towards the Senate floor. I'd like to read the whole thing, so you, Dear Reader, don't have to, but I just can't. Life is too short to spend it with my nose buried in the awful gaggle as comes out of our Congress these days.

I did begin to read the CBO scoring of the bill, but even that I couldn't finish. I got stuck on the very first page where it reports that the Baucus bill will cost $829 billion and reduce the deficit $81 billion. Excuse me? In what strange dimension does $829 billion worth of spending piled on top of our standard yearly budget deficits equal a positive $81 billion?

If the CBO is doing an honest analysis, and I think they are, then there is only one explanation and consequently no need to read the rest of the CBO report or the Baucus bill. The Baucus bill must, somewhere deep in its byzantine provisions, raise government receipts $910 billion through some combination of taxes and Medicare cuts.

And that's really all we need to know about this bill. Whatever the politicians say, the fact is that under this bill, American citizens are going to be soaked to the tune of $910 billion so that Washington will have a new toy to play with, 1/5th of the American economy. If that primary fact is kept in mind, then I think it is clear that the details of this abominable bill don't matter.

But there is another reason I cannot read this bill.

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Despite all the talk-talk in the Major Media and Washington, believe it or not, there is no Baucus bill. All esteemed Senator Max Baucus "passed" through his committee was a conceptual statement of what the bill will contain when it is actually written.

I'm not sure how you pass legislation that hasn't been written yet. Presumably the committee members voted on something that looked like this:

U.S. HEALTHCARE ACT

The major concepts of this Healthcare Act are as follows. As soon as practicable, but in no event earlier than we feel like it, these concepts shall be expanded into real, written legislation of no less than 1,500 single spaced pages, each page containing at least 10 clauses beginning with "Whereas" and 25 clauses beginning with "Now, Therefore."

1. This Healthcare Act shall be the only way anyone can get health insurance or medical care of any kind.
2. The medical services industry shall provide all medical services to any and all citizens upon demand as per the provisions of this Act.
3. No one shall use the term "Public Option" in connection with this Act or otherwise within the jurisdiction of the World, nor in any future jurisdiction as may be established (hereinafter "the Solar System").
4. This Healthcare Act shall not cost any more than $829 billion, unless it costs more.
5. This Healthcare Act shall reduce the public deficit $81 billion, unless it doesn't*.

*New taxes and medicare cuts in connection with this Act are itemized under footnote 1043 of Addendum XXXIV to this Act, the original and all copies of said Addendum to be kept in the wall-safe of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Senator Baucus tells us that he would like to put his bill in writing for everyone to read, but it would take "weeks" to do so. If that is so, it must mean that our government still does these things with secretaries, typewriters and stencil paper, and that's a shame. If Senator Baucus' office only had computers and word processing software, I am sure the work could be done much quicker.

I think I can say without controversy that our elected Representatives ought to only vote on legislation that is written and complete. That said, for us citizens, it really doesn't matter whether this bill is written before the vote in the Senate, written after the vote in the Senate, or carved into clay tablets and exhibited to the world from the slopes of Mt. Sinai. This bill, and the Congress for which it stands, are a travesty, an utter travesty.