Advertisement

Opinion: Ticket Replay: 5 things you could do in the time it takes to read Obama’s healthcare bill

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

As the holiday season unfolds, our thoughts on The Ticket turn to working not quite so hard for a few days. So we are re-publishing some of our favorite or most-read items from 2009. This item originally appeared on Nov. 19.

The latest version of the healthcare bill may have to be airlifted from the Senate floor. It weighs in at a whopping 2,074 pages.

Advertisement

The House’s version was certainly large at 1,990 pages, but this new one adds some hefty love handles. The table of contents alone takes up 14 pages.

As Politico noted, it could take as much as 48 hours, by some accounts, for someone to read the bill in its entirety.

That got us thinking. What else could these politicians be doing in the time it would take to read this cinder block of legislation -- because we know each and every one of them will read every last word of it, right?

5. Watch the last three seasons of ‘ER’: For some perspective on what it’s like to work in healthcare (or what it’s like to be an actor on a series that wouldn’t die), you could watch the last few seasons of ‘ER.’ You may be the first person ever to do so.

4. Take a motorboat from Alaska to Russia: Sarah Palin may be able to see Russia from her window (but probably not). However, it’ll take about two full days to get there with a top-of-the-line motorboat. Trips like these make us wish for offshore drilling so we can make a pit stop along the way.

3. Read the Bible one and a half times: This one depends on your version of the Bible, but many prints are in the neighborhood of 1,200 pages -- that includes both the Old and New Testaments.

Advertisement

2. Accrue enough radio experience to host a national talk show: In Glenn Beck’s ‘The Real America,’ a 2005 book by the political pundit, he writes, ‘After doing a total of maybe 40 hours of talk radio, I was asked to host a national show.’

1. Watch 12 episodes of ‘Glenn Beck,’ 21 episodes of ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ and a full week’s worth of ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show:’ That prescription of nonstop ranting should ensure you will vehemently hate the healthcare bill without ever reading a word of it.

-- Mark Milian

Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we’re also over here on Facebook. And our Facebook Fan page is right here.

Advertisement