I saw late yesterday...

...that the House Republicans had a health care bill of their own (the Senate Republicans do not). I looked forward to reading about it this morning, and went to Ezra Klein's blog in the Washington Post and Jonathan Cohn's daily column in the New Republic. They are my go-to guys for all things health care-related. When neither one had anything on it I went to Politico.com, where I found this piece in the middle of the page. (I guess the reason is that Minority Leader John Boehner hasn’t released the full details yet.) I'll be interested to see what Klein and Cohn have to say about it in the next few days.

This reminds me of a conversation I had recently with my oldest brother. We were discussing health care over dinner and he suddenly asked me if I'd read the bill (a common debating tactic). My answer, of course, was "no." I've never read a piece of legislation in my life and I doubt that I ever will. (This bill in particular sounds awfully long and boring.) Come to think of it, I've never read any contract that I've signed. I guess I just rely on people to tell me what's in them. Does that make me lazy, or a good judge of people? I've never been surprised by anything in them (except my home insurance; they never cover anything), so it must be the latter. Maybe I'm neither; maybe I'm just typical (at least in this one instance). Honestly, who could ever read everything we're supposed to? It's just not possible. (I once had a friend who said, "Don't tell me you can't judge a book by its cover. Otherwise, I'd have to read 'em all.") If you pressed me on it, I can't even be absolutely certain that legislators are meeting in Washington to debate health care at all. I'm not there, so I rely on what I've read. Heck, I can't swear that the Bears played this past Sunday; I wasn't at Soldier Field. Again, I have to rely on others for information.

And that's my point. We have to rely on what we read and hear to interpret reality. We can't read everything and be everywhere at once. But where we can exercise control is in the sources we use to get our information. And that's why I've decided to listen more to an Ezra Klein on health care (or anything else for that matter) than, say, a Glenn Beck. This is where we get to use our powers of reasoning and ask, does this guy seem to know what he's talking about? Is he really knowledgeable? Does he have an axe to grind? How does he stack up against the other guy?

So, no, I haven't read the Pelosi or Reid bills. Nor will I read the Republican bill. Instead, I'll rely on others whom I trust to tell me what is actually in them. And I'll also trust them to help me decide what is good or bad about them. The trick is in choosing good filters and in constantly reassessing their value.