We have avoided the health care reform debate as much as possible (for no other reason than to remain focused on the criminal, generational rapists who run our nation's failed banks and their captured apostles in Washington) but occasionally something surfaces that trumps the rule. Allow us to present exhibit A.
This clip is frightening when you consider the immense power of legislative language and the inherent ability to twist the proposed meaning of entire paragraphs to suit any particular interest, in this case the interest of private insurance monopolies, hospitals, big pharma, the government, you name it. If no one can even understand the language in the original bill, then call us radicals but we're guessing the odds for post-legislative 'intent-twisting' are pretty high.
Do not miss this short video and then please send it to all your friends.
Watch (video is below)
From Democratic Senator Thomas Carper we have the following bombshell quotes:
- “I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”
- Carper described the type of language the actual text of the bill would finally be drafted in as "arcane," "confusing," "hard stuff to understand," and "incomprehensible." He likened it to the "gibberish" used in credit card disclosure forms.
- “When you get into the legislative language, Senator Conrad actually read some of it, several pages of it, the other day and I don’t think anybody had a clue--including people who have served on this committee for decades--what he was talking about,” said Carper. “So, legislative language is so arcane, so confusing, refers to other parts of the code—‘and after the first syllable insert the word X’--and it’s just, it really doesn’t make much sense.”
- “So the idea of reading the plain English version: Yeah, I’ll probably do that,” said Carper. “The idea of reading the legislative language: It’s just anyone who says that they can do that and actually get much out of it is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”
But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who also serves on the committee, said the descriptive language the committee is working with is not good enough because things can get slipped into the legislation unseen.
- “The conceptual language is not good enough,” said Cornyn. “We’ve seen that there are side deals that have been cut, for example, with some special interest groups like the hospital association to hold them harmless from certain cuts that would impact how the CBO scores the bill or determines cost. So we need to know not only the conceptual language, we need to know the detailed legislative language, and we need to know what kind of secret deals have been cut on the side which would have an impact on how much this bill is going to cost and how it will affect health care in America.”
******************************
Thank you!
If you have a Twitter account and agree with our sentiments, then PLEASE re-tweet this post to all your followers.
