GOP lawmaker admits not reading 'every word' of healthcare bill
Considering that the document is short (comparatively), that's a damn shame. I'm sorry, but that's just lazy and a dereliction of his duty as a lawmaker. Part of what those people are paid to do is read and know inside out the damn laws on which they vote.
Congressman Collins stated:
I will fully admit, Wolf, I did not, but I can also assure you my staff did. You know, I have to rely on my staff, and I can probably tell you that I read every word and I wouldn't be telling you the truth, nor would any other member. We rely on our staff and we rely on our committees, and I'm comfortable that I understand this bill in its entirety, Wolf, without pouring through every word, and I'm just being quite honest. That's the way it is.
Excuse me? The bill is but 126 pages long (
Look at it. It's substantively a lot less than that as there's a lot of "white space" on the pages.). It was under discussion for weeks prior to being voted on. Who the hell, especially among people who have college degrees, can't manage to read 126 pages over the course of several weeks?
By all means, rely on one's staff to accelerate one's in-depth analysis. That's what all many principals must do nearly all the time. One reads a report and then meets with the staff who composed it to question them about things that do and don't align with one's professional experience, case-specific knowledge and general knowledge.
The thing that's different, certainly in my field, is that unlike the Congressman, most decision makers don't have an original document they can read and that forms the basis for the analysis their staff performed; the original source information comes from interviews and raw data collection. One person simply cannot perform a case study of a company's operations, or even a subset of them, in a timely enough manner, and that means one must manage to a successful, effective and high quality outcome the approach a team of people doing the "legwork."
I don't have a problem with a Congressperson delegating work. I have a problem with their neglecting their responsibility. For such a short piece of legislation, part of a Congressperson's obligation is reading the thing.
(FWIW, the ACA, which is a huge document, also should have been read by members of Congress. Though it's quite long, they had a year to read it. So, yes, the fact that they didn't read it is equally derelict to me. I should point out too that as goes the AHCA, 2016 incumbent winners of their seats in Congress are equally obliged to also have read the ACA. Big as it is, in two years, one can read it, and as the AHCA is a modification bill not a replacement bill, it's every bit as important to read it. After all, neither bill deals with slight matters.)
