Easy Find & Read HR 3200 and Health Reform
What Makes It Hard to Read?
The 1,017 page version of the bill is very confusing and difficult to read. The outline format with only about 160 words per page, double spaced, 14 pt font make is difficult to read. Click image to go to page 143.
I think Congress impressively combined nearly every science-based and
cost-effective approach
to
“re–form"
health
including those in
18 bills
introduced this year.
The combination uses
systems thinking,
addresses
determinants of health. It will help us meet the
Constitution's goal of promoting health, happiness, prosperity
and well-being. It will re-form health insurance and care, and
create a
national prevention
and wellness strategy to reduce health care spending and preventable
illness.
A problem is being self-sufficient and getting
our own facts. We need an easy way to read the documents and make sense
of the parts. This page lets you see major and minor sections and a
summary. Then you click and go to actual text and
details which you're interested.
Congress
will do the
next steps to make the bill that will
become law this fall. Congress’
Congressional Research Services
(CRS) states that
“talk of what’s in the major House bill has
been dominating the news and political blogs. Unfortunately, the
public discourse about health care reform has been harmed by false
claims, scare tactics, and lies.”
2 Ways to Make it EASIER to Find and Read
4 Organization Charts (image at top right is the first) listing major sections (Divisions) and sub-sections (Titles, Subtitles). It has permalinks that, when clicked, will take you to actual official text at the CRS version.
CRS HR 3200 6 Page SUMMARY to find HR 3200 text providing detail for the summarized text. It also has permalinks to the CRS version.
Or, simply read the "Printer Friendly” HR 3200 from the Library of Congress. A 261 page pdf file with 10 pt font, single spaced with ~700 words per page. Use this in conjunction with "notes" on the above file.
Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee The Affordable Health Choices Act (summary, 22 page; draft 615 pages)
Don't forget to review the Constitution and the legislative process / how laws are made (from the US House of Representative's web page).
Cost evaluation/effectiveness is not addressed in the above information. Go to: Congressional Budget Office (pdf, doesn't seem to evaluate effects of Division C), Trust for America's Health, Commonwealth Fund, Kaiser Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
- Prepared by
- Jim Grizzell, MBA, MA, CHES, ACSM-HFS
- Fellow - American College Health Association
- jimgrizzell@healthedpartners.org
- August 20, 2009; Updated August 24