The 1,990-page health-care bill in the House is one of the weightiest pieces of legislation on Capitol Hill.

A single-sided copy of it printed by The Wall Street Journal weighed 19.6 pounds, and stood 8.25 inches tall.

If it passes, it would be among the longest pieces of House legislation ever, congressional historians say.

Republicans are making political theater of the bill's bulk. Rep. Roy Blunt (R. Mo.) said the bill is longer than War and Peace (1,225 pages) and the King James Bible (1,291 pages). Rep. Michael Burgess (R., Texas) stood on top of a copy at a Capitol Hill rally this week to view the crowd. Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.) uses a dolly to wheel it between Capitol Hill meetings.

Supporters say an initiative that remakes nearly one-sixth of the national economy and touches nearly every American deserves lots of ink.

The U.S. Government Printing Office, the main source of documents for the federal government's three branches, says it has printed 1,335 copies for Congress and other government agencies since the House released the Affordable Health Care for America Act last week.

Some Democratic congressional offices have tried shrinking four pages onto one to save paper. But staffers with poor eyesight complained.

Rep. Glenn Thompson (R., Pa.), who carries the bill in a reusable Giant Foods shopping bag, said he left his copy unattended on the House floor, triggering a security alert. The chamber's sergeant at arms said someone had reported it as a suspicious object.

It was the second shopping bag he put into service, Mr. Thompson said: "The first bag, unfortunately, the strap broke."

Democrats say criticisms of the bill's size are unfounded, since the whole thing can be read online.

"The citizens," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, "they don't need to carry it around."

Easier said than done. J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association and a supporter of the bill, said: "My computer crashed twice when I tried to download it into an Adobe file." Still, he refuses to print it. "I believe in being green," he said.

As of the 1980s, Congress replaced individual appropriations bills with so-called omnibus appropriations legislation. One such bill in the 1990s came in at 1,908 pages. President Bill Clinton's failed health-care bill was 1,342 pages.

But nobody can remember a bill as big as this year's health bill.

Diane Havens, a Wyckoff, N.J., voice actor, has rounded up 120 other voice actors to make audio recordings of most of the health bills, including the latest House version. More than 800,000 people have downloaded or listened to the legislation on her free Web site since early September.

Ms. Havens said she liked the recording so much she listens while exercising on an elliptical machine. "I have a whole iPod just for it," she said.


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