Health Care debate: Where is the transparency?

I remember that the new administration vowed to show more transparency in passing laws and government spending.

In the United States Senate today, Senator Max Baucus (D.,Montana) has convened the Senate Finance Committee to vote on the Health Care Bill. The bill from this body of lawmakers will cost $829 Billion. There are 13 Democrats on the committee and 10 Republicans. Due to having more votes, and the possibility of having a lone Republican (maybe Senator Snowe (R.,Washington) vote their way, the Democrats bill is expected to pass.

Then it gets really interesting. The few nuggets of information coming out of this bill is that eligibility to Medicare will be expanded. Tax breaks would apply to families to help out with the mandated insurance coverage. The Senate Finance Committee version then needs to be reconciled with another version of a Health Care bill coming out of the Senate Health Committee.

It gets better. The House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.,CA) will have an even more liberal and possibly more expensive version with the infamous "Public Option" version in it.

While the final votes of the final version of these bills are still at least some weeks away, why aren't these bills not on the White House website in a PDF Form? I know that they are hundreds of pages long, but as taxpayers, we will have the burden of paying for all this government "reform". We should be able to read the information and be able to call our representatives to tell them if we do or don't agree with the bills. We should be able to read about all the sweetheart deals and goodies that all the politicians from both parties are adding to the bill as it grows and grows.

If we were truly focused on reform, why don't we focus on the situations when catastrophic medical situations crush families? Why don't we have any Tort reform? The reason most doctors run so many tests on their patients is because if they are ever wrong, the plaintiff lawyers are on the wings, ready to file lawsuits. If you think that it's hard to fight an insurance company with a claim now, good luck if we then replace the insurance company with a bureaucrat that will answer to no one.

This has nothing to do with reform. This has to do with more Federal Government intrusion and control over our lives. We have to remind ourselves that political leaders in fact, work for us, we do not work for them. We are more than piggy banks that they can shake and shake as our tax money pour out.

There has been no change here, just the same government indifference and largess. We should be able to see all the bills and their amendments to have a real debate on this issue.