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111TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION H. R. 3200
To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JULY 14, 2009
Mr. DINGELL (for himself, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. WAXMAN, Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California, Mr. STARK, Mr. PALLONE, and Mr. ANDREWS) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, Education and Labor, Oversight and Government Reform, and the Budget, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the
committee concerned

A BILL
To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF DIVISIONS, TITLES, AND SUBTITLES.
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009’’.

Just the introduction, tells you who introduced the bill, and that it originates in the House of Representatives. The listed committees are the ones apparently currently deliberating and negotiating the content of the bill.

I wonder why Education and Labor is included on this list? I guess there are some unionized professions such as nursing that this does heavily impact, and many other workers in the industry as well.

The rest of the pages I referenced is merely the index for the bill. I didn't think it needed to be evaluated. If anyone finds anything interesting in those pages, however, please speak up!

This won't be as tedious as I anticipated

I had heard that this document was 1200 pages long. But the .pdf version I linked to yesterday is actually only 1,017 pages.

I also reformatted it in my Word program to widen the margen and decrease the spaces between lines. Just finished the first 125 "official" pages, and it shrunk down to a size that will probably put the final form into about 350 pages.

Now on to actually reading what's there. It's not nearly as interesting as this book on Leno and Letterman I've got on the end table, but it needs to be done.

Look for something early tomorrow, or, if you're eager to get going, download that link and see what it says!

Two links to get us all started

Here is the link to the original bill.

Here is the link to the video answers to questions provided via the official White House server.

Why I'm Doing This

Hello readers,

I'm not a politician, pundit, or lobbyist. I am a registered dietitian and exercise physiologist who recently made reference to health care reform on another blog. The post generated more referrals than I expected...which suggested to me that a lot of people are looking for information and not finding what they want.

I specialize in areas of medicine that traditionally have not fared well with with our current system--weight management, mental health, eating disorders, and infertility. So I figured it might behoove me to take a closer look at the proposed reform as it pertains to the people I have committed my career to serving.

The discussion is destined to be long and detailed, and I didn't want it to detract from the purpose of the blog where I first posted a comment, an infertility/eating disorders/weight management blog, so I decided to start a new blog where I can start to look at the bill, item by item.

What I'll be doing here is going through the bill, section by section, and sharing about what I see. I will be opening up my entries for comment. However, I will be moderating the comments. There are plenty of places on the Internet to rant, surmise, opine, share propaganda, and manipulate with scare tactics...and that's exactly what I don't want this to be. If you have strong emotions about the bill, and do not wish to take the time to share them in an evidence-based fashion, please find another blog to discuss those.

If you have thoughts or would like to challenge my thoughts, please be professional, calm, and when possible, reference your ideas.

I look forward to a challenging and respectful discussion!

Monika M. Woolsey, MS, RD