The Social Security Act was 64 pages, The Civil Rights Act was 8, The 19th Amendment was 1 page...

[NYC_SKP]

And the Declaration of Independence is ONE PAGE.

Why the Health Care Reform Bill requires nearly 2000 pages speaks, well, Volumes!

:nuke:

64 pages to create Social Security, why 2,000 to reform health care?
Posted: 12:59 PM ET
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

With Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats unveiling their 1,990 page health care reform bill - it made us wonder about other landmark pieces of legislation in U.S. history and how long they were.

* The original draft of the 1935 Economic Security Act, which established the Social Security Administration was 64 pages
* The Civil Rights Act of 1964 - forbidding discrimination based on race and sex: 8 pages
* The 19th amendment to the Constitution, giving Women the right to vote in 1920: 1 page
* The Emancipation Proclamation, with which Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863: 5 pages
* Or, if you really want to get back to basics: The Declaration of independence came in at 1 page in 1776
* And the Constitution: 4 pages long in 1787

Health care reform, Pelosi version - almost 2,000 pages.
The Democrats say they'll post the final version online for lawmakers and the public to read 72 hours before a vote. Good luck reading 2,000 pages in 72 hours.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/30/it-took-64-pages-to-create-social-security-why-2000-to-reform-health-care/

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. Easy. One page to discuss each special interest or lobbyist.

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. Last time I printed HR676, it was 11 pages.

Just sayin'

[HamdenRice]

3. Heaven forbit that laws have become more complex since the 1920s for more complex society

Yeah! No law should be more complex that it was in 1776!!!11!

Leeches, I say, leeches! Who needs MRIs when the founding fathers had leeches!!!1!

[Better Believe It]

4. Is that why the single payer legislation only takes up 11 pages?

What do you think needs to be done to make it more complex, difficult to understand and even more difficult to implement?

I'm listening!

[Oregone]

5. The federal Canadian one is 16 pages, since half is in French

So, about 8 pages worth in english.

Clearly not uniquely American enough to go on.

[treestar]

17. When was it passed?

[Oregone]

20. When Reagan was skull-fucking the American workers

Mid 80s

Link to current act:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/PDF/Statute/C/C-6.pdf

[RC]

34. Google is your friend - Health care in Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

The beginning of coverage

It was not until 1946 that the first Canadian province introduced near universal health coverage. Saskatchewan had long suffered a shortage of doctors, leading to the creation of municipal doctor programs in the early twentieth century in which a town would subsidize a doctor to practice there. Soon after, groups of communities joined to open union hospitals under a similar model. There had thus been a long history of government involvement in Saskatchewan health care, and a significant section of it was already controlled and paid for by the government. In 1946, Tommy Douglas' Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government in Saskatchewan passed the Saskatchewan Hospitalization Act, which guaranteed free hospital care for much of the population. Douglas had hoped to provide universal health care, but the province did not have the money.

[treestar]

35. Someone else raises something, I can ask it without having to google

And the person just answered me, unlike you with your self righteousness.

[RC]

40. No wonder you didn't know with that haughty attitude.

How do you know the other poster was correct?

Canada has six separate and independent systems, implemented at different times. Which one were you asking about?

[HamdenRice]

6. How about regulation of the insurance industry

Financial regulations of the banks and securities firms are at around 30,000 pages. Even that wasn't enough.

As long as there is private insurance involved, keeping them honest would require thousands of pages of regs, which will include not just the bill, but rules and regs to be promulgated by federal agencies.

And btw, if Congress had seriously considered a single payer bill, it would have grown way beyond 11 pages into the thousands as well.

[Romulox]

12. Basic observation suggests that more pages = / = "more effective legislation"

from the example you yourself provide. Your argument is without merit.

[HamdenRice]

15. Wow, that's a dumb post

More pages of regulation = more complex regulation

which is associated with more complex underlying social and economic institutions.

[Romulox]

24. More complex regulation self evidentally does not mean more EFFECTIVE regulation

Nor does it mean regulation that is more aligned with the interests of common people.

Your own example proves it. Your silly namecalling just reinforces what is obvious to most. :hi:

[HamdenRice]

28. Dag, man, you need to slow down and read the actual words

"More pages of regulation = more complex regulation"

I didn't say more effective. In fact I wrote a long OP a few weeks ago about how the financial sector was not deregulated but regulated favorably to their interests in tens of thousands of pages of regs.

Can you read?

[Romulox]

31. Read the post to which you responded. You sure did. nt

[Romulox]

26. It should also be noted that most regulations are not statutory at all.

The poster I respond to routinely needs to be corrected on matters legal, but no matter. As the final arbiter of what is and what is not "dumb", he simply can't be slowed down by such trivial details.

Dag!

[HamdenRice]

30. Roflmao!

Coming from the number one least knowledgeable person on DU -- can you see where I did acknowledged the regs would be agency rules?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

hint: "which will include not just the bill, but rules and regs to be promulgated by federal agencies."

You're embarrassing yourself today!

[Romulox]

32. Which is why it's odd that you're arguing in support a more complex STATUTE

DAG!

"You're embarrassing yourself today!"

Only inasmuch as getting off in derailing any post I see of yours (with facts, no less!) is a guilty pleasure. I also admit it's gratifying to see so many poster react to you with hostility lately. :hi:

[Jakes Progress]

37. He doesn't argue.

He just tosses out non-sequitur jabs to hi-jack the conversation. This side of the argument - that side of the argument. It doesn't matter. Logic and consistency don't enter into it.

[mullard12ax7]

8. Heaven forbid a real question

without trolls attacking and stalking the poster. It's a real question: why are there 2000 pages? Answer: special interests, aka INSURANCE COMPANIES are being represented instead of people and our lives.

[Joanne98]

7. The more complicated something is the more you can game it.

It's the insurance companies.

[wtmusic]

18. Ain't that the paradoxical truth. nt

[Hannah Bell]

19. best answer. addendum: the more categories & brackets, the more profits.

[Fumesucker]

9. K&R

[Odin2005]

10. Bureaucratic bloat.

The more complicated it is the easier it is for the rich people with lawyers to screw us and for insiders and bureaucrats to protect their position.

[Romulox]

11. "The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away. " nt

[BrklynLiberal]

13. One of the 10 Commandments of Corporate Government

:thumbsup:

[Jkid]

14. The real reason why it's so long.

So that average people will be put off from reading the entire bill just from the sheer length of it.

[treestar]

16. It likely amends many other acts

Each section of each act has changes in wording.

[xchrom]

21. kick

[NYC_SKP]

25. I love Jack Cafferty... I wonder how he'd do on Celebrity Jeopardy?

He seems out of place among the crew at CNN... :eyes:

He'd probably do pretty well on Jeopardy.

Anchors sink on 'Jeopardy'

CNN should consider banning its anchors from appearing on "Celebrity Jeopardy" after the humiliating defeats of Wolf Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien.

Wolf was blitzed last month, coming in last with minus-$4,600, behind comic Andy Richter, a past winner who racked up $68,000 for charity. "Desperate Housewives" star Dana Delany came in second.

This month, it was O'Brien's turn against NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Michael McKean, of "Spinal Tap," "Laverne & Shirley" and "Saturday Night Live." McKean, a previous winner, ended with $24,800, followed by Abdul Jabbar with $8,800 and O'Brien with $6,200.

A CNN insider defended the journalists: "They are reporters, not trivia experts. And the buzzer is complicated. It's not activated until Alex finishes the last syllable of the question. If you hit the button too soon, nothing happens."

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/pagesix/anchors_sink_on_jeopardy_otdWknnBnpH2jCseGGrJLL

[xchrom]

29. a shame about the other anchors on cnn - jack -- who knows? nt

[ipaint]

22. 10 pages of reform and 1990 pages of loopholes to get around the reform

in those 10 pages. All written in language no working class american, without a personal team of lawyer/lobbyists could decipher in a good year of solid reading.

Can't wait for the incremental change.

[Kansas Wyatt]

27. But it gets a foot in the door to add...

KY lube later!
:sarcasm:

[ljm2002]

23. Thank you...

...I am sick of hearing about how laws "have to" be 2,000 or 3,000 pages long because they're just "so complex". You know what? That old engineering principle applies to laws as well as to buildings and software: K.I.S.S. "Keep It Simple, Stupid!". The more complex things are, the more likely they are to have structural flaws. No surprise with the laws, though -- those flaws are put there on purpose by the lobbyists who write them.

[elehhhhna]

33. the Patriot Act was 300+ pages and they wrote that overnight, right? LOL

[Jakes Progress]

36. Checked your insurance policies lately?

Bloated and filled with language to hide behind.

Well, guess who wrote the bill?

[NYC_SKP]

39. Mortgages and Auto Purchase agreements.

they get longer and thicker and less likely to be read by even reasonably intelligent people....

[Jakes Progress]

41. They are designed that way.

I worked with a university writing program that was supposed to help insurance companies make their policies clear and understandable. They found that when their policies were written clearly and concisely, they sold fewer and had more questions that agents couldn't or didn't want to answer. Their solution was to lobby the state legislature to rescind the clear language guidelines.

These are the people writing this bill.

[Rage for Order]

38. I asked this very question as an OP a couple of months ago

Regarding the length of HR 3200, which at the time was just over 1,000 pages. The responses I received ranged from smarmy at best to mockery at worst, with nary an intelligent reply to be found. Oh, how I long for the days of the simple, 1,000 page bills of just a couple of months ago

:sarcasm: