so what's in the damn things?

Been looking online for any news source that bothers to tell us what's in the Baucus plan or the House ones, other than which ones are more "liberal," how much it costs, and whether or not they commit the cardinal sin of providing healthcare to illegal immigrants. After spending a little time finding the name of the Baucus bill (it's "America's Healthy Future Act," in case you were wondering), I found a copy of the early, layman's terms iteration of the bill, all 223 pages of it, which is a little long for a layman to read in his spare time, especially one who doesn't know much about the ins and outs of healthcare policy.

John Dingell's plan (America's Affordable Health Choices Act), however, is over 1000 pages. Pretty much all I can find about it is how much it costs and whether it funds abortions and euthanasia. This bill has been around at least July, when it was endorsed by the American Medical Association, and that's the full extent of its coverage. Great job, journos!

I found only a couple stories and posts that actually deal with the content of the bill: one here from RJ Eskew at the Huffington Post, one here from Ezra Klein on the CBO's quite positive assessment of it, and one here from Forbes. In fact, it looks like Ezra Klein may be the only person in the country repeatedly writing about what is in this bill.

From how it sounds from these stories, as well as what I've read elsewhere, it's really irritating how Baucus seems to look for every way possible to get money from the Treasury into the pockets of insurance companies. It's almost obsessive, like he's deeply apologetic over the slight of making them stop cutting off service to people right when they most need it and looking for ways to make it up to them.