Politics

72 Hours for the Final Health Care Bill

By Sunlight Foundation & Participatory Politics Foundation

Of all the transparency considerations surrounding the health care reform negotiations, Congress has been the best about making the text of bills available online in a timely manner before voting on them. On this measure, they’ve been remarkably open. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D, CA-8] outlines on her blog, all the different versions of the health care bill have been online for at least 72 hours before being debated, including the 85% similar original bill, H.R. 3200, which has been available online since June.

So it’s no surprise that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer [D, MD-5] announced today that they are committed to having the final health care bill online in a timely manner as well.

The House Democratic Leadership is committed to having the final health insurance reform legislation online for 72 hours before the House votes, for all Members and the American people to review. We will continue the transparent process this landmark legislation has had for months.

As we’ve done with all previous iterations of the health care bill, we’ll be hustling to get the final bill up on OpenCongress as soon as possible so you can use our bill text commenting and permalinking tools to discuss it at the most granular level possible. Grab this blog’s RSS feed, or follow OpenCongress on Facebook or Twitter, and we’ll send you a heads up the second the final bill is available. Should be sometime next week…

Full post as published by Open Congress on January 14, 2010 (boomark / email).