Our editorial today questions the delay in posting the the House health care bill — the one which passed committee on Friday and which will receive a vote on the House floor after the August recess. After all, how are we supposed to discuss what’s in the bill during the August recess if we cannot even refer to a canonical text?
The same problem exists in the Senate, where the committee on Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) passed its health care bill on July 15. We still don’t have a copy of that text, and this has been a source of consternation for Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, the ranking Republican on the committee. Enzi penned a letter last Wednesday to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., requesting that the committee’s majority staff produce the text and the bill’s cost estimate.
“We need to know what’s in the HELP Committee bill and how much it costs,” Enzi said in a recent statement. “Democrats passed this bill through Committee more than two weeks ago now. How long will they take to post the final language so the American people can read it?”
