Judging a Bill By Its Size: Sean Spicer and John McCain

It’s a bummer (a gross understatement, believe me) to live in an age when a well-thought-out insurance plan gets looked down on simply because it had too many pages. Since I’ve joined the party so late, I assume you know what I’m talking about so I won’t go into much detail but here is my two cents and I intend to tell it.

This wasn’t the first time in history that this type of comparison has been made. During the Clinton administration, John McCain gave a similar speech when he talked about Clinton’s Health Security Act and compared it to the Social Security Act, saying:

“This is the Social Security Act passed in August of 1935, 38 pages in length, establishing Social Security for all Americans. This is the Health Security Act. Excuse me if I have a little trouble picking it up. And that is 1,342 pages. 38 pages versus 1,342.”

This is like when two people on the internet are arguing and one of them know that they’re going to lose and start picking at the other person’s spelling and grammar. It’s a loser’s tactic when they have nothing substantial to criticise and can only pick at the superficial things.

The other thing that I find stupid is how they seem to think that thinner and less wordy, therefore easier to understand, is better. Do you know why the tax codes are so complicated? It’s so that people have to pay their fair share and that loopholes are kept to a minimum (although that doesn’t seem to apply to the rich). It’s the same with any other complex piece of legislation; if you want something that actually works and is fair and covers all bases, then what you want isn’t a bill the size of a research paper.

“Look,” they say, “look at this nerdy pile of paper! We can cut down on the words and make it more digestible-looking while actually cutting down on your coverage and upping your costs. But you won’t look too closely to know that because our stack of paper looks less nerdy.”

Ok, I’m done with my rant. We’ll talk to you on Wednesday.

John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight covered the issue pretty well: Watch it here!

Side note: This is an introductory article to another longer article on a broader subject. I’ll link to to the longer article here when I publish it.

Another Side Note: Yes, I know we’ve been slacking off on our political commentary the last couple of weeks, but we’re writing a series of posts about America’s political history by comparing presidents so look forward to that in the near future. The new series will be written by nemoulysseus and she’s working hard on it so I hope you guys will check it out when she posts them.