WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democratic health care legislation is an unwieldy mountain of paper as revealed to cameras by Republican lawmakers.

A big, unwieldy bill means big, overreaching government is their message.

Lawmakers routinely debate massive legislation without absorbing every word. They employ people to find what matters to them.

The nation's health care system accounts for one-sixth of the economy and no one really expects brevity when reinventing something so complex.

No one really expects the Republicans' theatrical legislation inflation to stop, either.

Five Republican senators displayed the massive legislation on their desks during the weekend vote to bring the Senate health bill to full debate, as GOP lawmakers have been doing since the House bill came out earlier.

Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa was seen carrying the House Democratic bill on his shoulder, all roped together. GOP Rep. John Culberson of Texas brought a copy to a Capitol Hill rally and threw its loose pages to the crowd, like meat to lions.

The actual Senate bill, which Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week, came in at 2,074 double-spaced pages, 84 more pages than the House version, which was already being ridiculed for its size.

By now, the full draft of Reid's bill that had circulated in the corridors and landed so prominently on Republican desks has been published in the Congressional Record in the official and conventional manner, which causes the bill to appear smaller at just 209 pages.