Why bother reading the (healthcare) laws before they pass?

Eye-rolling quote of the day,

During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

As Betsy put it,

So I guess that the excuse is that, since they can’t read it or understand it, it’s fine just to let the House leaders (who probably haven’t read the whole thing either) reassure you that the whole thing is just fine. At least some representative’s aides somewhere have read some part of the bill so that should be enough, right? Who says that when you’re rejiggering over one-sixth of the US economy and incurring massive future debt that you need to know what it is you’re voting on.

Hugh Hewitt has a graph on the annual increase in deficit from Obamacare alone:

Let’s hope the Republicans keep reading what’s on the healthcare bill.

In the meantime, the White House war with CBO continues.

UPDATE
Via Instapundit, Mark Steyn:

Thousand-page bills, unread and indeed unwritten at the time of passage, are the death of representative government. They also provide a clue as to why, in a country this large, national government should be minimal and constrained. Even if you doubled or trebled the size of the legislature, the Conyers conundrum would still hold: No individual can read these bills and understand what he’s voting on. That’s why the bulk of these responsibilities should be left to states and subsidiary jurisdictions, which can legislate on such matters at readable length and in comprehensible language.

As for optimum bill size, the 1773 Tea Act, which provoked the Boston Tea Party, was 2,263 words. That sounds about right.