The Healthcare Bill: It's Your Job Now

Hey Paul. It's disappointing to me to read that a senator is coming right out and saying he has no intention of reading the bill. That's really disheartening. He should read it and raise all of his issues with the language on the floor. That's his job.

But you raise a good point. If the senators aren't reading the bill due to its confusing legislative language, I don't see how the crowd will be able to provide much perspective.

Well, here is a Senator who outrightly stated that he is not going to read the Obamacare bill. Sounds ironic to hear a guy saying he is not going to do the job for which he is being paid to do. But one very interesting thing about this is the Senator's very honest confession that:

" The thing is, he’s right about legislative language being incomprehensible, especially when, as in the case of ObamaCare, the subject matter has to be reconciled with so many other provisions of existing commercial law. Essentially, it’s an endless labyrinth of cross-referencing other statutes; you’d have to have the entire U.S. Code in front of you to follow the language accurately (or, better yet, a point-and-click version on the Internet) and even then your eyes would glaze over in short order from trying to keep track of it all. Point being, federal law long ago reached the point of bloat and bureaucracy where even legislators can’t digest it. The most they can do is trust the staffers who actually write the stuff to harmonize it well enough that unintended consequences are kept to a minimum".

So if legislators are foinding it so difficult to digest federal laws, then where does this crowdsourcing strategy from the murky realms of the internet leads us into?

Finance Committee Democrat Won’t Read Text of Health Bill, Says Anyone Who Claims They’ll Understand It ‘Is Trying to Pull the Wool Over Our Eyes

Great points, PaulJ and Mary. If you scan some of the comments on the bill on Culberson's site, you'll see a lot of the knee-jerk reaction stuff that you both refer to. That's one of the main problems I see with this idea of crowdsourcing bills. I'm just making up numbers, but I imagine it's bound to be 90% unhelpful, emotional responses and 10% constructive feedback. Hardly seems worth it. I agree with PaulJ that this may not be the right way to involve citizens in the conversation.

Well said, Mary.

"When I read user posts on articles from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, it's filled with inane, knee-jerk comments."

One of the disadvantages of the Web is the immediacy it delivers between brain and exposure. In days past, it may have taken some time and thought to write to a legislator or even a newspaper; today, thoughts can be fired off directly without a whole lot of thought, adding to the confusion, not the solution.

Excellent point. I agree with you completely.

Our politicians were elected to represent us. REPRESENT is the operative word, and how the elected official interprets and acts on it is the issue here.

Using technology to get the people to edit a bill is not right. When I read user posts on articles from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, it's filled with inane, knee-jerk comments. The few gems that help the discussion are hard to find. If that is any indication, the comment thread on a bill will require more government personnel to cull the list ( = more taxes to pay for them). Think about how many bill proposals go through the congress in any given year!

I applaud Rep. Johh Culberson for wanting to engage the public on such an important matter via an obvious medium and technology. But engaging the public is different from getting the public to edit a bill. I don't think he intended to shift his responsibility to the public. But officials should have a clear plan on how to use technology to get input from their constituency. They should not use it as an editing tool for any bill.

From the time our government first established the voting rights of the people of this nation, they have assumed that not everyone would be an expert on the matter at hand.

This brought us the Electoral College and a representative for of democracy called a republic. We have the right as citizens to voice our opinions and let the representatives know which way to steer the country.

The new era of transparency gives us an opportunity to become more involved in the policy decisions of our nation. Whether or not the representatives themselves read the bills or our responses to them, someone will. Admins, pages, aides, lawyers and lobbyists will all avail themselves of this process and it would be irresponsible of us to surrender it over to them exclusively.

Remember it is not always the voice of the majority that is heard, but the loudest voice in whatever concerned minority that speaks up. It is important that those of us who are active on the web make being involved in this process as a priority. Our numbers may seem small compared to the population of this country but ever child of school age is aware of the internet. The coming generations will have an opportunity to make themselves partners in our government. Our opinions may not be heeded at first, but over time, there will be increased influence.

As technology improves, the web becomes more accessible and more people use it daily. We all have families and friends with whom we interact. If each family only has one actual web user, they still get the information. This will give the silent, sane majority of this country a chance against the talk radio hosts and slanted news reports. The best way to remove undue influence is to make the facts available to everyone for their own decision. The fear mongers and spinners trip themselves up eventually.

Our opinions on posted bills will be a record of how well or poorly this new idea works. If the politicians choose to ignore our opinions, the record will still be there. Perhaps, eventually we may even develop some ethics and accountability.

Stork, 
 
you mentioned something That I believe is essential to this discussion: 
 
"Do I know anything about healthcare, no not much, but my friend who is a doctor does." 
 
This is a part of the concern for me. The average citizen who will want to be a part of this process may not know much about healthcare. Say, for instance, the bill were put to a vote for citizens. How would we distinguish between an educated, well informed vote, and a vote from a casual CNN viewer? There are certainly more in Column B than in Column A, so where does that leave us? 
 
The problem with the Patriot Act being passed was that several of those who signed the bill flatly admitted they didn't read it, and no one is disputing that they should have. 
 
I agree wholeheartedly that citizens should provide input, as I think most of us do, but throwing the matter open for a nation wide vote is a different matter entirely. 

Homestead,

I think it's great that you thoroughly read the bills. And if you know 5, or 10, or 20 people who also read them, that's even better. However, this is hardly representitive of the entire population.

My concern isn't with the minority of well informed citizens, such as yourself. It is with the general population who, as Hulot said, are more inclined to be influenced by outside sources rather than simply reading and deciding objectively.