I have tried to compare the Obama/Congress health care plan with some of the criticisms. I do like the title of the Republican alternative: "The Empowering Patients First Act." I am not familiar with the Liberty Counsel, but it has a list of problems with the current bill in a pdf file (I have also received a number of critical emails with similar listings of the bill's failures). The AARP supports the bill and on its web site states that right-wing hysteria is behind these lists of problems. It is almost impossible for the average person to go through each part of the bill and deal with the criticisms in an intelligent manner. The bill is too long and the criticisms are lengthy.
I just had time to look at one criticism of the bill and that is the issue of whether end-of-life counselling is required on pages 424 and 425 of the Democrat bill. Critics say it is required, but the AARP and others say it is not. Critics say the elderly will be required to have this counseling every 5 years--the current bill says shall. I am not a lawyer or a grammarian, but to me shall has the idea of a duty so does this become a mandate? One legal writer states that shall has the same sense as must. Also when parts of the bill use the phrase "may include the order," I think this is troubling--when does "may" become a "will?" Congress needs a good grammarian to proof its bills.
Volokh also made some comments on August 7th about the problems in the bill.
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