The thing about policy is usually somebody big is warning the public ahead of time that the "affordable healthcare bill" (for another example) isn't actually affordable healthcare (it's mandated health insurance), get called debby-downers/negative/hateful, and then it happens that way anyway due to lawmaker and corp PR pushing it through while everyone else cheers. Actually reading the bill and thinking/wargaming how it will apply deterministically with basic thought experiments is discouraged. And all "sides" do this, from incentives.
I question the validity of the spirit of bills when it repeats like that so often. At some point that is the spirit of the bill.
This is of course ignoring the revolving door, regulatory capture, and lobbying angles, which are always in play some (maybe huge) %. Also predictable and deterministic, from incentives.