It’s not the size that matters but how you use it.

One thing about healthcare that bothers me (and trust me there is a lot about this “debate” that I can and will write about) is the complaint over the bill’s length. According to 2009 articles, the bill is about 1018 pages long, but I’ve heard recently that it has become 2000+ pages long. Somehow, simply stating this fact is an argument against the bill.

According to the Huffington Post in March of 2010 (I reluctantly use this because of its open Liberal bias), the bill contains 234,812 “substantive” words, or words that actually pertain to legislation and not the table of contents and such. By comparison, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix has 257,000 substantive words. That’s right; the young adult book has more words than a piece of legislation. Also, keep in mind that bills are double-spaced and include other devices that create large amounts of white space (margins).

I feel bad for not knowing who said it and when (as you could believe that I'm just making it up) but I swear I remembered hearing someone on NPR asking "Why can't this bill be 15 pages long?". You can't reform the healthcare system in 15 pages. My undergraduate senior thesis was 30 pages long and I could have gone on longer.

 I never want to talk about this guy again...

Shouldn’t bills be long? They have to do a lot. You can’t just write “Dropping people due to pre-existing conditions is illegal”. You have to define “pre-existing condition” or else companies can call them something different and exploit a loop hole. You have to define “tax evasion” or people will claim they committed “tax avoision”. NO. You attempted to not pay taxes through various means. You can call it “Cat-Tit Bingo” and it would still be illegal.

Slate does give a few other examples of why bills are becoming longer.

I guess the basic “argument” against long bills is that you can hide a lot in there and nobody has the time to read it to find it. Although, I’m sure those parts would be discovered by certain legislators who do care about writing our laws.

I haven't read it yet but it's gotta be a good deal! It's so big!

Point is, this length argument is pointless. What is in there is more important than how long it takes to say it.