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Universal Healthcare

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Submitted By sburson
Words 1130
Pages 5
Sunnie Merritt
English102 (online)
Expository Essay
July 29, 2010
Confusion Over the US Health Reform Bill
The latest poll out today from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health-care-policy research organization, says only 27 percent of the public has been following the 2010 health reform debate closely. Despite this, more than half (56 percent) of Americans think health reform is more important than ever. Very smart people are zoning out of the health care reform debate because they think it’s just too complicated. The complexities of US health reform are a problem, because American citizens and politicians cannot make good decisions about an issue they do not clearly understand or have been misinformed.
Defining the goals of reform is relatively easy. Implementing them is tough and that’s where people are made to feel stupid - partly by special interest groups who intentionally or unintentionally confuse the debate. According to John Lapook in an article posted on CBS News.com, at least one senator admits he has no intention of reading it. "I don't expect to actually read the legislative language because . . . the legislative language is among the more confusing things I've ever read in my life," Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) quotes to online news service in the article. Carper told CBSnews.com that the bill was "incomprehensible" and "hard stuff to understand. Carper stated he doubts his fellow members of the Senate Finance Committee will read their handiwork either. The article states that the committee is drafting a summary of the awkwardly worded bill, which is aimed at providing affordable health insurance to all Americans. The summary would put the legislation in plain language for the public. But at least one senator expressed suspicion that the summary would not tell the full story, according to Lapook. "The conceptual language is not

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