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Words Mean Things

By: hogan (Diary)  |  November 24th, 2009 at 09:09 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The Senate healthcare bill has numerous flaws – but you needn’t know the details to know that it erodes freedom, restricts your ability to care for your family according to your wishes, costs trillions of dollars, increases taxes, increases premiums and is so massive that it is impossible to comprehend fully. In fact, the 2074 page behemoth in the Senate is an interesting study in word choices that tell you all you need to know about the bill. See below for a list of select words – and I am not the only one to do such a review (I noticed, e.g., Lee DeCovnick over at American Thinker from yesterday here).

The word “shall” appears 3607 times, but “freedom” only twice. The word “penalty” and its various forms 163 times, but “liberty” doesn’t appear at all. The word “require” and its forms 1025 times, but the “Constitution” is absent both literally and figuratively. The word tax and its forms appears 183 times, fee 234 times, and “Internal Revenue” 104 times. Other words like apply, rule, culture, diverse, enforce, provide, authority – all words that appear repeatedly, while a word like “own” appears only 11 times. See the full list below. It is quite telling.

    Words in the Senate healthcare bill:

(including the various forms of each, e.g. plural)

Pages = 2074
Shall or Shall Not = 3607
Provide = 1910
May or May Not = 1047
Secretary = 2500
Penalty = 163
Sanction = 8
Oversight = 39
Study = 150
Report = 789
Require = 1025
Authority = 115
Culture = 40
Allow = 162
Cost = 562
Fund = 563
Fee = 234
Tax = 183
“Internal Revenue…” = 104
Enforce = 47
Government = 117
Qualify = 482
Apply = 1741
Monitor = 55
Rule = 310
Certify = 177
Law = 283
Authorize = 408
Reasonable = 61

Compare to:

Freedom = 2
Free = 15
Liberty = 0
Choice = 40
Choose = 4
Own = 11
Constitution = 0
Federalism = 0

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  • USNJIMRET
    • yoyo

      Shall, Sanction, Tax, Allow, Penalty, Monitor, Oversight, Enforce, and Require.

      That is Kingdom Building at it’s finest.

      Hey, I am just saying…. (shrug)

  • jtkell100

    I do not understand why the Democrats are so desperately pushing this so call health bill which will destroy America as we know it.(Freedom) Do they not have family, Mothers, Fathers,Sons, Daughters, Grandchildren and Friends living in America? They are destroying what I and many others have fought and died for. Why is this happening to our Great Country. Please everyone, fight with everthing you have to save this Country. The true fixes for health care was left out of this bill. Fix health care, cut the socialism.

  • yoyo

    Provide – 1910. Own – 11.

    Require – 1025. Choice/Choose – 44.

    Allow – 162. Liberty – 0.

    Is it just me and the way I was raised? I do not want to be provided for or required to or ALLOWED to do something by my government.

    This is INSULTING. I don’t want your handouts, Harry! I have (and can continue to) provide for me and my family without your freebies. I neither want or need them.

    Harry, go back to Nevada and Pack Sand!
    [insert Hawaiian "Good Luck" finger wave here]

  • again

    when you take words out of context they mean anything.
    It is a health care bill not the Declaration of Independence.
    Perhaps, “shall not” might mean the insurance companies shall not gouge their customers, or the insurance companies shall not deny coverage.
    If you have health care now you have the freedom to keep it. There you go.

    • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

      Doesn’t matter to what entity the “shall” or “shall not” is directed. The government has no right to dictate the things they’re dictating within that legislation.

      It’s obvious you haven’t read the bill and prefer to rely upon claims that are made in direct contradiction of the legislative language.

    • Aaron Gardner
    • mschmitt

      … “come on! Don’t PULL HERE on my leg! Obama won’t let anything bad happen to you!”

    • jtkell100

      Fix the health care problem by allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines, TORT REFORM, insurance pools to insure the normally not insurable, get the fraud out of medicare and leave the other 90% of the people alone.

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • louisiana

    Happy Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) . These words were found in a Best Buy Ad. No Happy Thanksgiving, but certainly being politically correct toward Muslims is more important.

  • LibRick

    and all legislation should be scrutinized in this manor. Good work! I’ve done a stint in doc writing and have been tasked to insert loads of “weasel wording” language. I’ve actually been in long meetings discussing the relative merits of using the word “shall” or “will.”

    It would be interesting to see all legislation given this kind of scrutiny as a point of comparison. However, ultimately it’s not the word but the statement of the sentence that defines the intention.

    • Aaron Gardner
      • LibRick

        I would modify your statement as “can be just as damning.”

        I don’t like this healthcare bill at all. I am a liberal and want a Medicare for all system. (see, Aaron, I AM a liberal) Some day we will get there, likely not in my lifetime, but we will get there.

        This bill is a mess, rife for abuse, unintended consequences, and hardship for many people. It”s more about politics than actual help for anyone. I’m willing to scrap this bill and wait until America, as a whole, believes as I do and is ready to bring a sensible and viable universal health care system to this country.

        So, everyone, flame me if you wish, but on this issue, I”m on your side. I just have different motivations. .

        • janis

          think that we need universal Medicare type health care here? If the free market were really free in this area in particular, we wouldn’t be looking at the kinds of insurance premiums we are now. Better yet, if we did away with health insurance completely and just went in for consumer driven health care, the prices would fall drastically and we’d have a much better range of choices.

          Yes, there should be some safety net for those who absolutely need one, but there should be near-incontrovertible proof of that need. And by and large, no one should get health care for nothing. Whether they can pay dollars or pay in some other way, such as volunteering hours in exchange for health care, then they should. Giving someone something for nothing is a sure road to abusing the system.

          How to pay for that consumer-driven health care? Again, get the government out of the way in order to allow jobs to be created, lower taxes across the board to stimulate spending and investing, and make absolutely sure that the free market works as it should—competition, competition, competition.

          • LibRick

            and I can’t refute a single one of them, because your views are fully steeped in reality. I not only accept them but I actually agree with them.

            I was expressing my “hope” that one day all Americans, individuals and businesses, will never need to factor healthcare in when making life or business decisions and everyone will have the best opportunity to live, if stricken with a difficult illness.

            I don’t think that time is now but my ideology and faith gives me hope for the day, someday, that it will happen. This is really not a political thing with me, more a matter of my faith. .

          • rivahmitch

            The problem I see with your statement, Rick, is that you could substitute “housing”, “food”, “recreation”. “a swimming pool” or anything else in your sentence for ‘healthcare”. Free adult life is about making choices and decisions and living with their consequences. I chose a career with comparatively lower pay but with excellent health benefits and an earlier retirement. Several times I was offered double (or more) my salary if I’d move but I stuck with my plan… Freedom is the right to make those choices. I don’t buy the idea that I should now have to pay for healthcare for those who made different choices. Nor do I buy the idea that anyone can have a “right” to a good or service for which someone else must pay.

            I didn’t notice that a lot of the people wanting such new ” rights” were alongside when I enlisted in the Marine Corps in the 60s to pay the price for my citizenship in rice paddies far away from home. “Freedom” isn’t free either.

          • LibRick

            In fact, my life has played similar to yours. I joined the USAF in the ’70′s. After that I’ve worked in defense and aerospace. I’ve always had excellent health insurance and great retirement. I too rejected more financially lucrative positions and I stuck to my plan.

            My statement is solely based on my Christian faith as I received it. I merely advocate a hope that a day will come when healthcare for all will be viewed as a moral obligation by those that are more fortunate but not a right by those who have less.

            This healthcare bill is decidedly not that, for all the reasons you and others articulate. I’m just hopeful the day will come when everyone sees it that way. Until then, a bad bill that has less than half the country’s support is no substitute.

          • Aaron Gardner

            Janis laid out the plan pretty well, and I see you didn’t object. I understand what you are saying about your ultimate goal and your faith in achieving it, and it not being political.

            All that said, I truly believe that the best way to reach that goal is the free market system. 100% coverage single payer or not will never be achieved, the best bet is to open the market up and allow the price to fall. After that businesses can start offering a opt out swap to their employees, drop your company insurance and you get paid 75% [negotiable]of the difference in a raise.

            This solves multiple problems with the current system, 1.) doesn’t require draconian measure by a distant centralized govt, 2.)infuses money into the economy at the workers level, 3.) reduces overhead for small and large business alike, 4.) allows for greater choice [we like choice] in coverage, 5.) lowers cost of insurance, 6.) protects the privacy and confidentiality of the the health care process.

            If I thought on this more I could probably flesh out a few more things, but I think you get the point.

            The goal of health care for all is a great and honorable goal, I just totally disagree with your action plan on how to get there. I do enjoy the fact that you can be rational unlike many of those who claim to be liberals.

    • ecroper

      hummm !!!

      • ecroper

        Freedom isnt FREE. Why is there always somone that wants to take somthing away from somone and give it to some one who hasnt earned it.

  • VizBiz

    These people decide who lives Free and who lives in Slavery, who gets wealthy and who remains on the govenment dole (willingly or not).

    I’m reaching my boiling point.

    • USNJIMRET
  • tokm908

    And opt-out only once. I did my own word count…

    http://www.redstate.com/tokm908/2009/11/19/word-count-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act/

  • Kyle-MI

    Why is the IRS even mentioned in a bill that is suppose to be about health care? Do you really want the IRS to be involved in your health care?

  • cjohnson

    Should have a field day with this. Doctor tells patient to get a job and lose money because the taxpayers are paying for her:
    http://winstonscat.blogspot.com/2009/11/doctor-to-patient-get-job-and-lose.html

  • squabulous

    Like for instance, “Healthy Forests” means clear-cutting, “Clear Skies” means more pollution and “Patriot Act” means repealing the laws that made this country great.

    All politicians play this Orwellian redefining of terms and rewriting of history. But only lazy writers indulge in meaningless word-mining exercises to cover their lack of ideas for a story. Shame on you, Hogan, for crapping out such a vacuous excuse for news on a site that is supposed to be reserved for NEW and RELEVANT INFORMATION and INTELLIGENT DISCUSSION.

    You discredit yourself and this venue with such flaccid attempts at relevance.

  • olddog

    as this bill will be, they all get exemptions, from what they will impose on the masses, ( Harry’s smelly tourists, nancy’s nazi’s, bill’s teabaggers, etc. ad nauseum) all of us. If you love this Country and the freedom’s, the way the founders intended,resist this takeover by an abhorrent Government, they claim its for us, its not, its to reward very big special interests, and give them unconstitutional power over our very lives, follow the money and you will see the biggest benefactors and it won’t be us. and this will affect adversely even those who agree with them , unless they are in the inner circle which most won’t be. They shall make no law unless, it shall be applied equally to all. No place, in the Constitution does it give to Congress this power.!! They are and have been, for many years vastly overstepping their constitutionally given authority, and getting away with it ,because most folks are just trying to get by, and too busy, to keep check on them we trusted ,unfortunately, our elected officials.

  • danielbdp

    Each of the below points can be fully documented – please educate the uninformed…

    http://src.senate.gov/public/_files/graphics/DemHealthCareNumbers.pdf

    0 – guarantees taxpayers do not finance abortion
    0 – prohibitions on rationing health care
    0 – senators required to enroll in new govt.-run plan
    9 – new taxes created
    20.8 – pounds the bill weighs
    70 – government programs created
    1,697 – times the Secretary of HHS is given authority
    to create, determine, or define things
    2,074 – pages
    3,607 – uses of the word “shall”
    1.6 million – jobs lost with an employer mandate
    $6.8 million – cost to taxpayers per word
    24 million – people left without health insurance
    $1.2 billion – cost to taxpayers per page
    $5-$10 billion – needed for IRS implementation
    $8 billion – taxes on uninsured Americans
    $25 billion – Medicaid mandates placed on states
    $28 billion – new taxes on employers
    $100 billion – fraud in Medicare / Medicaid
    $118 billion – cuts to Medicare Advantage
    $465 billion – cuts to Medicare
    $494 billion – new taxes on Americans
    $2.5 trillion – cost for full implementation
    $12 trillion – total U.S. national debt

  • stevemoschetta

    I ran Mr Hogan’s word list against the Patriot Act and below are the results; I
    have given the number of times a word appears in both bills and, since they
    cover diffferent areas of gov’t and have a significant difference in the number of pages, a way to compare the bills using the percentage a word appears vs. the total number of page in the bill.

    As a percentage of appearances, the bills are very similar for Shall/Shall Not and May/MayNot. As well as for Require and Report and Rule and Monitor.

    Hmmm, certainly is telling.

    Health Care Patriot Act Word v pages Word v pages

    Pages 2074 342

    Shall/Shall Not 3607 448 174% 131%
    Provide 1910 129 92% 38%
    May/May Not 1047 177 50% 52%
    Secretary 2500 174 121% 51%
    Penalty 163 11 8% 3%
    Sanction 8 6 0% 2%
    Oversight 39 1 2% 0%
    Study 150 16 7% 5%
    Report 789 172 38% 50%
    Require 1025 127 49% 37%
    Authority 115 64 6% 19%
    Culture 40 0 2% 0%
    Allow 162 4 8% 1%
    Cost 562 11 27% 3%
    Fund 563 108 27% 32%
    Fee 234 2 11% 1%
    Tax 183 9 9% 3%

    • janis

      How do reasonably compare the two? They are nothing alike, or shouldn’t be anyway. I would expect a bill about national security to have words such as authority, rule, penalty, etc. regularly. Not so with health care.

      Try again.

  • stevemoschetta

    My apologies, I corrected the formatting errors from my earlier note

    I ran Mr Hogan

  • stevemoschetta

    I ran Mr Hogan

    • janis

      that will make your failure of a president look marginally better? Sorry, this wasn’t it.

      • stevemoschetta

        Janis, obviously you did not read all of Mr Hogan’s blog – he himself used the term “telling” regarding his analysis. And that’s my point, my analysis is telling of nothing, just as Mr Hogan’s is telling of nothing. Words have meaning when used in context – qualitatively not quantitatively. And it is Hogan and people like yourself that are grasping

        • DONTREADONME

          I had to laugh at your comparisons, what is telling is that you tried to argue over another place about when the numbers were taken. BTW, 2000 page documents tend to be more restrictive in nature due to the vast amount of time spent working around subjects they have to make sure they are restrictive without being specifically restrictive, I am guessing you have never seen the wonderous bureacracy our Government has become in the last two years. Anyway, I am laughing at you, nice try there good to see you were taught how to use CRTL+F in pdf college.

  • BlackConservative

    We know the only time Democrats ever mention choice is when they are talking about the choice to murder the unborn, kind of like the way they mention freedom. Freedom to kill babies and freedom to have constitutional rights even though you are a terrorist. Words are indeed, powerful things.