Do you wonder whether your Congressman is telling the truth when he says ObamaCare won’t put taxpayers’ money toward abortions? (FactCheck.org says it might.) Or when he says that it won’t give illegal immigrants health insurance subsidies courtesy of the taxpayer?
You might think you could figure it out by looking for a current copy of the Democrats’ health care bill. Unfortunately for you, no such copy exists.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted on a final version of HR 3200, the health insurance reform bill sought by President Obama, on July 31. About 50 amendments were added to the bill that had been published earlier in July. Nearly a month later, there is still no copy of the updated product available for the public to read.
Sources on Capitol Hill tell The Examiner that the bill is currently in the hands of the House Office of Legislative Counsel, which declined to comment on confidentiality grounds — Congress is its client. The Energy and Commerce Committee’s spokeswoman did not return The Examiner’s calls. Twenty-six days ago, the committee told The Examiner that the bill should be produced in “two to three weeks.”
House Democrats still have the power to bring anything they want to the House floor — they could theoretically bring a totally different bill from the version of the 1,000-plus page HR 3200 that was current in mid-July. They could introduce a bill twice as long, just hours before it gets a House vote, as they did with the Cap and Trade bill earlier this summer.
And if the House and Senate each pass a bill, congressional Democrats could once again substitute something entirely different. Good luck if you’re trying to learn anything about how ObamaCare would affect you. If you don’t like all of the sausage-making and lack of transparency, you might even begin to question whether it’s a good idea to give the government so much power over health insurance.
