What exactly was voted on yesterday? The Senate Finance Committee refused to post a copy of the proposed bill online for Americans to read. It appears that the reason why may more likely be found in the CBO's October 7, 2009 letter to the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucas, page 8 which states that "The Chairman's mark, as amended, has not yet been converted into legislative language. The review of such language could lead to significant changes in the estimates of the proposals effects on the federal budget and insurance coverage."
The CBO goes on in that letter to state (page 9) that "Federal spending that would be funded by future appropriations is not reflected in these estimates. For example, implementation costs for operations of the Internal Revenue Service and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are not included." Any business must count the costs to implement an idea before it can determine whether or not there will be a positive return on the investment. How is government any different?
It seems the rules of order are now disregarded in the Senate, committees are now passing what is at best the notion of a bill/plan as opposed to a definitive plan. How can such a bill/plan be responsibly administered? A health plan requires a written contract to administer it. Apparently, Americans are now discovering not only is Congress too lazy to read the bills presented for a vote, Congress is now too lazy to even write the bills it passes! Are notions of legislation all we need now? Are we now making it all up, after the fact? This is a travesty of democracy. Americans work hard, pay their taxes and deserve far better treatment than this from their elected officials.
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