Directions for Supreme court Justice Antonin Scalia who said,
“You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?” he quipped. “Is this not totally unrealistic, that we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?”
No, thats not how you do it.
Reading a very long technical document involves a careful combination of, skipping, skimming, and very careful reding and study.
And most of the documents are double spaces with wide margins, so don't be intimidated.
As judges, you're being asked to decide on specific provisions of the law. So, no, you're not being asked to read and decided on every part of it.
Lawyers were making specific claims on specific provisions, and they will refer you to them and cite them for you.
As a business analyst with 25 years in healthcare, I have had to read long healthcare regulations, policies, business documents and related technical documents.
Typically we're asked to do something specific to specific parts of it. Our process may be similar.
Let me offer a few suggestions:
Don't get your information from outside sources.
Do find credible summaries to get your bearings. This will help you formulate a strategy find and read the parts of the bill that matter to you. The people who compiled the bill or authored it, may have a concise explanation of what is in the bill and will be able to tell you what they wrote and why.
You have trained legal staff, and access to the government. They can help you.
Carefully read the documents that refer you to specific provisions of the bill.
They will provide specific citations, and claims about the bill.
Your job is to understand if their claims are true.
- Does it really say that?
- What are the practical consequences of it.
- And of course you'll need to read case law.
Their citations will be specific.
But if you want to get a better feel for the totality of the law, after you've read the summary, you will need to figure out how to go and look for the parts you need to read.
When it comes to looking over and reading the bill, look at the table of contents to figure out how its divided up.
Here:
Title I. Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans
Title II. The Role of Public Programs
Title III. Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Health Care
Title IV. Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health
Title V. Health Care Workforce
Title VI. Transparency and Program Integrity
Title VII. Improving Access to Innovative Medical Therapies
Title VIII. Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS Act)
Title IX. Revenue Provisions
Title X. Reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act
So you might be asked to decide on a provision relating to payments in Title IX. Revenue Provisions
And you can certainly skip past things like definitions of "large employers", unless that's relevant to your decision.
There are tax tables. Unless the specific amounts are relevant, you can skip that too.
You can skip most of the bill, the way you do when you read an owners manual and skip past all the foreign language, the parts list, the disclaimers, the list of service centers, operating conditions, the warranty and warranty claims, and just get to few good parts that matter.
But if you find that you need to do a lot of reading, just do it.
Someone's life may depend on it.