Hear the Bill Features Health Care Reform Audio
Voice Actors Come Together to Record Legislative Proposals
A group of voice-over artists have done that very task for you at Hear the Bill. The not-for-profit site has audio available for download of the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bill recorded by 84 voice actors from all over the United States, as well as some from Canada, the U.K. and Australia.
Hear the Bill is the brainchild of Diane Havens and Kathleen Keesling, two voice-over actors who live thousands of miles apart from each other and are at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
"We're working for the primary goal is getting the information out there to the public," said Keesling in a phone interview. "That's what is holding us together. We don't talk about politics."
Discussion Originally Started on Facebook
Havens, who lives in New Jersey just outside New York City, and Keesling, who hails from the Four Corners Region of Colorado, originally "met" on a forum devoted to voice-over actors. Contact has shifted somewhat to Facebook where conversation about the health care bills began in August. The pair agreed that the public needed an option to hear the health care proposals.
"Kat got the site up, and did all of the of infrastructure," Havens said in a phone interview. "I got all of the volunteers and split the work up into sections. It took about three weeks from the start to finish from our original conversation."
Hear the Bill went online September 3 with HR3200, the House version of the health care legislation. The site subsequently added the Senate version, as well as the September 22 amendments. As of September 30, it was nearing 650,000 hits, and experiencing about 50,000 hits per day, according to Kiesling.
Volunteers Recruited via Social Networking Sites
While the idea got its start on Facebook, the duo got the word out on a number of other sites, such as Twitter, Voice Over Extra Newsletter, VoiceOvers, Linked In, and Plaxo.
"I'm a big social networker," Keesling said. "In general we got the word out there, and then people picked it up and got the word out even more."
Havens found the volunteers while Keesling uploaded the audio to the site. At the beginning of the project, the number of pages given to each voice-over actor was roughly even, but Havens noted that actors working on the Senate version of the legislation were given scripts according to title and section.
How Hear the Bill Works
The site has separate pages for the House and Senate versions. Each section is accessed via a separate button and notes the line numbers as well as the audio's running time. From there, you are directed to another page which gives you the option of listening to streaming audio, or downloading an audio eBook or an MP3 file.
Options are also available to download the entire audio instead of in chapters as well as PDF files for a printed version. The duo plan to keep uploading amendments to the site so the public can continue to follow developments.
The Need for Audio Versions of the Legislation
There is confusion about what is and what is not in the health care reform legislation. Beyond that, at over 1,000 printed pages, the bill is daunting to read in its entirety.
Dina Monaco-Boland, a voice-over artist from Roselle, IL, a suburb of Chicago, said that contributing her time to this project was crucial for public understanding of the issue.
"I thought it was important to give back so that people could make informed opinions and decisions. With so many people on the go I felt that a downloadable resource would be a convenient and viable option," she said. " I do have to say that getting through the legalese was difficult at first but once I got used to the hierarchical structure it got a bit easier."
Getting the actual language of the bills out to the public is the real impetus behind Hear the Bill as virutally every other website and/or new program has some kind of political slant to its presentation.
"In the arena of politics now, people are very visceral about their beliefs. We have none of that going on here," said Keesling. "It's better if people hear what is actually in the bills, then go to their representatives and ask questions.
"At over 1,000 pages, it's intimidating to read. To have somebody read it to you takes down some of the barriers."
Voice-Over Talent Contributed to Hear the Bill
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