Pelosi says she read all of the health bill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that she had read the entirety of the healthcare legislation passed last weekend.

Pelosi told an audience Friday evening at Harvard University that she read the roughly 1,900-page bill, as well as the additional reports and language on the legislation.

"I've read 3,200 pages," Pelosi told the audience at the Kennedy School of Government. "We gave 1,000 pages to each of the three committees and then they reported their findings to us."

Republicans had demanded that their Democratic colleagues in the House read the lengthy health bill, going so far as demand a 72 hour window for the bill to be posted online for lawmakers (and their constituents) to read the legislation.

The speaker also defended the inclusion of an amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) imposing restriction on federal funds of abortion, an amendment which House liberals have demanded be stripped from any final health legislation.

"We were voting to advance the ball down the field," Pelosi said.

Still, she said that no issue in conference with the Senate's legislation was nonnegotiable, including the contours of the public option.

"You have to go to the table as an agnostic and fight for what's best for the American people," she said.

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