52

I found some comments by republicans/conservatives who claim she said this*, some indicating it was in regard with Obamacare, but I haven't been able to find any context or primary source.

So the question: Did Nancy Pelosi say this? And if yes, when and in what context?

*Some examples:

  • here the author says about something else that it's "Kind of like Nancy Pelosi saying we'll have to pass the bill to find out what's in it",
  • or here someone saying that "We also recall the incredibly arrogant statement by then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that ‘we’ll have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.’"
Emil Bode
  • 633
  • 1
  • 5
  • 8
  • 10
    I quite strongly remember reading an extremely similar question, it's either here or on Politics SE. I can't find it, perhaps it was deleted. – gerrit Feb 10 '20 at 09:16
  • 11
    Considering the GOP tax cut bill had hand-written parts in the margins, it's not an unusual or partisan practice to have parts "up in the air" until the last minute, not to mention the uncertainties imposed by the other chamber's acceptance process, including amendments, markups, riders, etc. In short, it's not over until it's over. – dandavis Feb 10 '20 at 19:20

2 Answers2

93

She said a similar sentence, but in a broader context, which results in a different meaning than the misquotation in the question:

Imagine an economy where people could follow their aspirations, where they could be entrepreneurial, where they could take risks professionally because personally their families [sic] health care needs are being met. Where they could be self-employed or start a business, not be job-locked in a job because they have health care there, and if they went out on their own it would be unaffordable to them, but especially true, if someone has a child with a pre-existing condition. So when we pass our bill, never again will people be denied coverage because they have a pre-existing condition.

We have to do this in partnership, and I wanted to bring [you] up to date on where we see it from here. The final health care legislation that will soon be passed by Congress will deliver successful reform at the local level. It will offer paid for investments that will improve health care services and coverage for millions more Americans. It will make significant investments in innovation, prevention, wellness and offer robust support for public health infrastructure. It will dramatically expand investments into community health centers. That means a dramatic expansion in the number of patients community health centers can see and ultimately healthier communities. Our bill will significantly reduce uncompensated care for hospitals.

You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention–it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

So basically, she was saying that there was so much disinformation going on, and that the actual benefits would be evident in use rather than reflected in sound-bites, that people needed to experience it to realize just how beneficial it was. "The proof is in the pudding," so to say. And it wasn't a matter of having to pass the bill so that the government could see what was in it, but to pass it so that the public can see.

She made a follow-up statement in 2012:

“In the fall of the year,” Pelosi said, “the outside groups … were saying ‘it’s about abortion,’ which it never was. ‘It’s about ‘death panels,’’ which it never was. ‘It’s about a job-killer,’ which it creates four million [jobs]. ‘It’s about increasing the deficit’; well, the main reason to pass it was to decrease the deficit.” Her contention was that the Senate “didn’t have a bill.” And until the Senate produced an actual piece of legislation that could be matched up and debated against what was passed by the House, no one truly knew what would be voted on.

“So, that’s why I was saying we have to pass a bill, so we can see, so that we can show you, what it is and what it isn’t,” Pelosi continued. “It is none of these things. It’s not going to be any of these things.”

Community
  • 1
Sean Duggan
  • 6,438
  • 2
  • 37
  • 60
21

Yes.

Let's break this down in context, from her address:

Imagine an economy where people could follow their aspirations, where they could be entrepreneurial, where they could take risks professionally because personally their families [sic] health care needs are being met. Where they could be self-employed or start a business, not be job-locked in a job because they have health care there, and if they went out on their own it would be unaffordable to them, but especially true, if someone has a child with a pre-existing condition. So when we pass our bill, never again will people be denied coverage because they have a pre-existing condition.

We can imply from external context that this means this bill is trying to regulate insurance to prevent coverage from being denied in this circumstance, but there's really very little meat to this assertion - it says almost nothing about how we'd achieve that, even with context external to this communication.

We have to do this in partnership, and I wanted to bring [you] up to date on where we see it from here. The final health care legislation that will soon be passed by Congress will deliver successful reform at the local level. It will offer paid for investments that will improve health care services and coverage for millions more Americans. It will make significant investments in innovation, prevention, wellness and offer robust support for public health infrastructure. It will dramatically expand investments into community health centers. That means a dramatic expansion in the number of patients community health centers can see and ultimately healthier communities. Our bill will significantly reduce uncompensated care for hospitals.

OK, this bill is happening right now, and she's updating us that it will, accomplish all of the above, but again, she says nothing at all about how it will do any of that. There is no meat to this at all, this is just what the legislation is trying to accomplish.

You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention–it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

This now acknowledges criticism and doubt, but doesn't actually address any of it in any way. So our speaker has asserted that the mechanism of the legislation hasn't been effectively communicated to the public, and instead of addressing that here, or anywhere above, we revisit (abstractly) what the legislation wants to accomplish.

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

So, here it is, she now claims the public will see the merit of the bill post-facto, after acknowledging that there are concerns and criticisms and failures of communication, but without attempting to address any of it.

The characterization of this quote as an attempt at justification for misleading the public is definitely a stretch bordering on an outright lie.

However, to characterize this as an outright dismissal of concerns about the content or any concerns about the ambiguity of said bill, is definitely accurate.

So, ultimately, Yes, she dodged talking about a bill by claiming it would have positive effects, and that we'd all see this to be true after it was passed.

Glorfindel
  • 1,452
  • 1
  • 17
  • 28
Iron Gremlin
  • 407
  • 2
  • 5
  • 20
    [Welcome to Skeptics!](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1505/welcome-to-new-users) This post is very rich in political opinion. There are many web sites that welcome answers and content based purely upon opinions. Skeptics Stack Exchange is not among them. Feel free to answer based on specific, referenced, empirical evidence, but personal opinions and anecdotes are not methods to obtain definitive answers. – Oddthinking Feb 11 '20 at 05:22
  • 11
    @Oddthinking It's the same source as SeanDougan's answer? He's just broken it apart and added a bit of analysis of what she's saying in the quoted text. – nick012000 Feb 11 '20 at 12:01
  • 9
    I disagree with this answer because the phrases are subtly different. When I read the question, I thought she was talking about her own understanding of the bill, but the quote is about the listerner understanding. – lvella Feb 11 '20 at 13:20
  • 2
    @nick012000 Because the question is predicated on whether or not the askers quoted sources were accurately characterizing her use of the phrase as dismissive of concerns and vague about the nature of the legislation. Hence, rather than quoting and just claiming "there was context", I quoted from said context and provided an explanation for said characterization of her commentary. 'Sort of, but...' is not the same answer as 'Yes, because ...' – Iron Gremlin Feb 11 '20 at 19:29
  • 6
    This is incorrect. The quotes were not about whether she didn't explain how all of the ACA would work in the same discussion. The sources portrayed Nancy as deceptive and asking people to vote on a bill people didn't know about. That's not what happened and it take a lot of (politically-motivated) squinting to say that yes, that's an accurate way of reading that quote. – Earth Feb 11 '20 at 20:20
  • 1
    @nick012000: 1) Even if it is the same source, the OP should link to it, so it this answer is accepted/upvoted so ti appears above the referenced answer or if the other answer is deleted, readers still have context. 2) That reference (Snopes) draws a different conclusion and gives additional evidence that the draft bill had been published & scrutinised. Using it to draw this conclusion is cherry-picking. – Oddthinking Feb 11 '20 at 21:41
  • 1
    To @Ivella's point, the reference also gives the crucial context: Who *is* the audience being referred to? Answer: National Association of Counties’ annual Legislative Conference – Oddthinking Feb 11 '20 at 21:43
  • 3
    @Oddthinking Linked to transcript. I fail to see how this is, in any way, "cherry picking" from source material. I agree Glenn seems to imply conspiracy, and I will further agree that's inaccurate. What both links from the question imply is an arrogant dismissal of concerns about the content of the bill. Which I think is accurate - the speaker acknowledges a failure of communication regarding the content of the bill, and then immediately dismisses criticisms and concerns out of hand with "you'll see once we've passed it." – Iron Gremlin Feb 12 '20 at 01:08
  • 1
    It is cherry-picking because the claim implies that secret legislation was being passed - or at least there was insufficient opportunity to study it before the vote. The original source pointed out the bill had been available and scrutinised. – Oddthinking Feb 12 '20 at 01:14
  • 1
    @Oddthinking Yeah, that was definitely not the idea I was trying to express here. I've edited my answer to make the distinction more clear - thanks for the feedback. – Iron Gremlin Feb 12 '20 at 02:07
  • 4
    I don't agree with this answer. It provides biased context, with political opinion that really has nothing to do with the question at hand, namely persuading the reader to believe the Speaker is lying. – Raestloz Feb 12 '20 at 06:36
  • 2
    I agree that this answer is deeply flawed. The OP is putting words in the Speaker's mouth, telling us what she "meant" based on nothing but his opinion on the topic. It even ignores the context of the situation in which the speaker was speaking. – nomen Feb 12 '20 at 18:07
  • 2
    @vdelp I'd say it takes a lot of politically motivated squinting *not* to see it as an accurate way of reading the quote. Let's vote on it. – StackOverthrow Feb 12 '20 at 20:54
  • 1
    @nomen I would ask how the current top answer is in any lesser way telling us what the Speaker 'meant' based on nothing but the answerer's opinion on the topic. I quote "So basically, she was saying" - with no other sources or backing. It just seems that you agree with that opinion and not this one. – TCooper Feb 12 '20 at 23:03
  • 1
    @TCooper: I suppose the difference that brought my attention to this poor answer is that the other answer *actually provided context*, **facts** about the situation in which the speaker was speaking that **informed** her speech. That is much unlike this answer. – nomen Feb 12 '20 at 23:08
  • 1
    @nomen what's one such fact you mention? They provide the exact same context, with a different interpretation, but a very similar conclusion. – TCooper Feb 12 '20 at 23:13
  • @TCooper: the link, which mentions where the speech was held and who its audience was. We can reasonably expect the audience to understand the workings of Congress, even if OP does not. – nomen Feb 12 '20 at 23:14
  • @nomen Ah I see, so the National Association of Counties has exclusive access to pending legislation beyond the general public... So *that* drastically changes the context... (heavy sarcasm). Are you mentioning the workings of congress specifically in which this bill was passed? This bill was unique in that it was passed from the Senate to the House where the House had only a few days to pass it by reconciliation, not the usual method for a bill this large. So while the Senate spent weeks pouring over the bill, close to 200 Republican amendments included, it was *rushed* through the house. – TCooper Feb 12 '20 at 23:29
  • 1
    @nomen I provided a link to an article that provides the full transcript of the original speech and is titled with the name of the event it took place at. There were earlier edits that didn't have this information and I added it in response to criticism. I am NOT attempting to indicate the Speaker is being untruthful or obfuscatory, and explicitly call out that I'm not trying to do that in the body of the answer. What I am trying to say is that, to a bipartisan audience whose doubt about the bill she herself acknowledges in the speech in question, she dismissed their concerns out of hand. – Iron Gremlin Feb 12 '20 at 23:34
  • @IronGremlin you even include "The characterization of this quote as an attempt at justification for misleading the public is definitely a stretch bordering on an outright lie." as a key portion of the summation . . . Thanks for contributing your time and effort to the discussion. – TCooper Feb 12 '20 at 23:37
  • 7
    "Yes" is too strong. “We'll have to pass the bill to find out what's in it” is understood as "Literally, neither I nor my fellow Democrats will actually read through the whole bill before voting for it", with "what's in [the bill]" meaning the actual words on the paper. "We have to pass the bill so that *you* can find out what is in it", in-context, means "You, the voters, will appreciate the benefits of the bill once you experience them first-hand". The misquote is an announcement of either massive incompetence or deliberate conspiracy in government; the real quote is just a sales pitch. – MJ713 Feb 13 '20 at 01:12
  • @MJ713 What you're not getting about this answer is the same thing Snopes failed to realize in their analysis. And it's that, for many people who found this quote objectionable, it wasn't about whether or not SHE knew, or her party knew, or was hiding anything. It was about, in the face of criticism and doubt that she herself acknowledges in the speech in question, she made the tacit assertion that the public's knowledge of or reaction to the bill's content was not germane to the legislative process. – Iron Gremlin Feb 13 '20 at 23:00
  • 1
    @IronGremlin But who cares why those people object to her? That wasn't the question. The question was, "Did she say that..." and the answer to that should be No, she said something else similar which can be misconstrued that way. – user3067860 Feb 14 '20 at 17:51
  • 1
    @user3067860 Because the specific objection is extremely relevant to whether or not 'that way' is, in fact, misconstruing the statement. The literal answer here is 'Yes' because those were the words that came out of her mouth, so all of this is a question of subjective analysis. Please read BOTH of the linked questions in the answer - one of those linked article is just accusing her of being extremely arrogant and talking down to voters. So to answer whether or not the quote is accurately characterized, you should care about characterizations being quoted - hence me splitting that hair. – Iron Gremlin Feb 19 '20 at 22:08