ANY final version of the healthcare bill should be posted with a public comment period before vote

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

This is one of the most important bills literally in the history of our country and the public has a RIGHT to look at it and make comments before a vote is taken. Plus, this was a campaign pledge by Obama - bills posted for public view with a comment period.

The devil will be, as it always is, in the details.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Public comment? To what end?

I think you've been misinformed about the type of government we have in the US.

[ficus1]

11. Public comments online would be great

Of course the comment area will degenerate into a racist cesspool and any attempts at moderation will be seen as censorship, but besides that, it sounds like a great idea.

[lindisfarne]

26. NOW is the public comment period - before the bills get passed, and particularly before they get

sent to the WH (when they're bringing together 2 different versions in committee after passage, go ahead & comment).
Once they get sent to the WH - it's pretty pointless. If you want to sway the president to veto, you know enough about the bills when they're getting passed in congress, so write the pres. then.

[Egalitariat]

2. The final version won't even be posted long enough for our representatives to read and comment...

before they vote on it.

[Oregone]

13. Thats really a sad way to run a government

To be honest, I could write a much shorter and more effective bill. Everyone there has to get in something to deliver a favor here and there.

[alc]

3. I agree

And all congress people should have to read and understand the entire bill before voting. Same with the climate bill. They both involve HUGE amounts of money with no end date.


Just think of all the surprises in TARP. Senators and representatives were surprised months later at how the money was being used and the lack of accountability and that no troubled assets had been purchased. But we "had to pass it right away" to buy the troubled assets and free up banks to give loans so it was voted on with no understanding of what it was.


No matter how important something is, make sure you are passing what you think. At least TARP had an end date/amount. The climate and healthcare bills could go into a republican administration. Even if Obama can use them the way we want, make sure we understand what another administration may be able to do with the same bill.

[billyoc]

4. IF Obama "pledged" that he's an idiot. It's none of his business. And you DON'T have that right.

Civics Is Fundamental.

[jody]

6. True under Bush/Obama "you DON'T have that right". You're only We the People, just Vote and SHUT UP.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

16. Please post the president that forced Congress to post bills for public commentary

before they voted on it. I was unaware that this was strictly a Bush/Obama thing.

[jody]

19. Please read more carefully, I did not say it's "strictly a Bush/Obama thing." n/t

[SemiCharmedQuark]

22. Ok, please post the presidential administration where you DO have that right then.

[jody]

27. LOL have a good day. n/t

[SemiCharmedQuark]

29. So you couldn't back up your inflammatory attempt to tie Bush to Obama on this issue.

You listed "Bush Obama" when you apparently meant "all presidents".

Nice dodge attempt BTW.

[alc]

7. pledge is "before Obama signs", not "before congress votes"

5 day pledge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5t8GdxFYBU starts at 1:02.


I didn't expect the results to be different, but one of the things I most liked about Obama was his seeming commitment to transparency letting us at least feel involved.

billyoc is correct: 1) we don't have the right to review or comment on anything at any point 2) Obama can't make a pledge about how congress will act (not sure which you meant). All we can do is elect different representatives next time if crap gets passed and signed. (We do have the right to call/fax/email at any point but those seem to have the greatest effect if there is a big campaign contribution or "congressional education trip" attached)

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. My opinion stands that the public should be allowed to look at the bill and comment before the vote.

I wish that all legislation were done that way. It would keep them from inserting stuff at the last minute like they did with the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that Phil Graham slipped into an ominibus spending bill

WHO WRECKED THE ECONOMY?
Mother Jones
July/August 2008 Issue

Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.
—By David Corn

skip

But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.

It's not exactly like Gramm hid his handiwork—far from it. The balding and bespectacled Texan strode onto the Senate floor to hail the act's inclusion into the must-pass budget package. But only an expert, or a lobbyist, could have followed what Gramm was saying. The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the sec nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (cftc) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century."

(it's kind of funny that they mispelled Grahams name throughout the entire article - :o

This kind of BS HAS TO STOP!!!

[jody]

5. Also the climate-change bill. n/t

[stray cat]

8. The public is always free to make comments - but that doesn't mean anyone cares what one person says

[jody]

10. Politicians only care what corporatist say. n/t

[sisters6]

12. Pres. Obama needs to post his health PLAN NOW--not the blue

print from months ago.

[Oregone]

14. He doesn't have one. He never did

He just has a couple ideas (you say blueprint). They are a tad general and ambiguous. He will take any plan Congress passes to him that *might* deliver on them.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

18. You're wrong to say he never did. He had a pretty good planwith lots of details on his campaign site

I could never understand why he didn't just give the plan he campaigned on, which people preferred to Hillary's mandates, to Congress and say, use this as your jumping off point. So far, nothing that I have heard any real details on is as good as Obam's original plan.

We should have had his plan go head to head with the single payer advocates and gotten a real discussion generated that would have concluded with significant and meaningful reform.

[sisters6]

21. I agree, It did have lots of details as I recall. and

it would have been a great launching pad. But single payer was off the table from day one from the WH.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

15. His pledge was to post it before he SIGNED it, not before Congress voted on it.

A pledge that he has not kept well, although apparently they are "working on it".

[4lbs]

17. Hey! Everything you ever want to know about any bill is at --> thomas.loc.gov

It's been that way for more than a decade!

I don't need the White House holding my hand. I can actually look it up and read it for myself! Including any revisions and amendments.

What a concept!

[jody]

20. Sorry, Thomas is not real time but lags hours or days. n/t

[4lbs]

28. Yet, people are whining that President Obama doesn't proffer it up on the White House site AFTER it

passes in Congress?

The Thomas site has it available for ANYONE's perusual while it's still being debated, even in the House.

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. That's not what Obama promised

He promised to post bills before he signed them, not before Congress voted on them.

[Simplyaverage]

24. The Credit card bill of rights passed without five-day break

If the pattern continues, we won't be able to comment on the health care bill either.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/234/allow-five-days-of-public-comment-before-signing-b/

[LWolf]

25. Don't hold your breath.

Public comments would just advertise how divorced the politicians creating the bill are from the people who vote them into office.