Hope and Fail

No five-day rule for health care

Someday soon this may get embarrassing.

Less than 36 hours after the House passed the Senate of health care reform package, the president signing it.

For you non-math whizzes out there, that’s a day-and-a-half. Candidate Obama, and President Obama, promised to post bills that reach his desk online for five days for public comment before he signed them.

To review:

During the campaign, candidate Obama said this:

When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it.

His campaign Web site promised:

Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

And the first post of the White House blog after Obama took the oath of office said this:

One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

The health care reform bill’s main provisions won’t become law for another four years, so we certainly can’t say it’s “emergency legislation.”

Of course, the time for talk is over. And as the president told Fox News’ Bret Baier on March 17:

By the time the vote has taken place, not only I will know what’s in it, you’ll know what’s in it because it’s going to be posted and everybody’s going to be able to able to evaluate it on the merits.

Sure.