Death by a Thousand Shalls

The analysis is rolling in for the House health care bill and the word shall appears a lot, over three thousand times.

The word "shall" - as in "must" or "required to" - appears over 3,000 times.

It's actually mentioned 3424 times. That's the quantifiable evidence of the government control in this bill. Shall is not a word that indicates choice. Instead, it indicates a mandate. Shall is used in things that citizens will now be required to do. It's also used in things the government will now be able to do, including a host of new bureaucracies.

Here's a list of some other not so nice words and how often they appear.

It's going to take some time to deconstruct this lengthy masterpiece, but as you flip through the pages of the House bill, you will notice the word "regulation" appears 181 times. "Tax" is there 214 times. "Fees," 103 times.

It's moments like this that provide yet another example of why I love numbers. All of these are quantifiable evidence of how the House health care bill forces upon us more government control, more taxes, more bureaucracies, and more costs.

Strip away the rhetoric. Strip away the nice words. What we have is a bill that gives a lot of new power in the form of 3424 shalls, all sorts of new taxes in the form 214 taxes, all sorts of new fees in the form of 103 fees, and all sorts of new regulation in the form of 181 regulations.