neil: all right. back with howard berg right now, the speed reader going through this. the order events is the reconciliation bill, amended bill voted on by the c.b.o. and scored today so it does look like the $1 trillion healthcare package is bargain basement deal at $940 billion. howard is going through first the amendment, the 153-page amendment that reconciliation measure that was scored. now that amendment much like sort of an upgraded operating system if you will that overlays the bill itself. but refers back to the old system if you will. i m not making it too, too clear, but suffice it to say, that the bill goes back to referring to this senate bill. that 2,000-plus page puppy that will ultimately be voted on by the house and away we go. that is what is really being examined here. that is what howard is
senators is in there. they talked about taking it out. the student loan thing is in there. god knows what else. howard, the world s fastest reader is getting man, oh man, he s worth his weight in gold giving us those nuggets. now this. first a delay, now president obama postponing a trip to asia until the summer. the white house says he s staying put to focus on healthcare. if the president signs a bill into law anywhere, what is behind him staying? former white house press secretary dana perino. does he have to be here? no because a bill can be sent to him. you can fly it anywhere and he can sign it. there s an obscure opinion from the justice department that says he could designate a subordinate to sign it for him. no president has done that. neil: that would look bad.
the book, you never raise revenue you think you are. the problem of not counting the full cost of the program and basically slamming in ten years of revenues in six years of spending, what we re doing here, neil, in my opinion is setting a fiscal time bomb that will explode in the future years. add to the cost of medicare and medicaid. the programs that are going broke. neil: hope to see you in washington. good to see you. by the way neil: go ahead. one quick point. ask howard is gatorade benefit in the bill? neil: we ll go. we have a lot of pressure. we have a lot of pressure on howard. frankly, disappointing me in the past hour but i love him dearly. back to howard berg, speed reader extraordinaooraordinar e. yoda if you will. you won t get done. i wasn t expecting to. neil: right.
rifling through here. because you have to get up to speed on that one, because this measure goes back to amending and correct i correcti bill that will be voted on. seemingly arcane. that s why we re spending a weekend in washington to go through it with you guys on fox news and fox business. but we felt obliged to do that. howard, what have you learned thus far? what is in the amendment, the overlay that was score and judged today that addresses the underlying 2000-page-plus senate bill? a lot of sta ttistics in the beginning on amounts to be paid. that s why it took so long. neil: numbers, by the way, for speed readers and people who doubt you, there is no doubting about you. you re in the guinness book of world records. i try to be a speed reader, please. i was a puddle jumper compared to this dude.
but you numbers generally slow you down a little bit. especially when percentage are based on numbers that aren t in the bill. i didn t see the number they based percentage on and trying to recall what i read in the past to see if i could link it together. neil: whoa, whoa. howard, you are breaking fox news alerts left and right, my friend. you say when you read the cover numbers and going back to the underlying bill to which they refer, address or correct, they re not there? no. it s some place else. it s a reference for something that isn t there. 15, 16 percentages broken out but it s not based on numbers in the bill but amendments to other numbers that are in a completely different location. that i don t see. neil: maybe you re just slow. maybe you ought to get up to speed. [ laughter ] you re saying i can t even