I saw a picture of some congressman sitting in front of a stack of paper last week that was the latest House crack at a piece of legislation that is supposed to represent health care reform.  I think I read that is was something like 1,950 pages long.    I’m pretty sure any document that is that long is good for attorneys, but beyond that I have to say I am skeptical.

I think it is sadly humorous that there are those in government who think the whole healthcare system is too complicated for the average Joe to sort out.  How did it get so friggin’ complicated to begin with?  Is anyone asking that question?  There is no doubt it has become brain numbingly complicated.  But those sitting on the left end of the congressional bench intend to make it “better” by making it even more complicated.

One of the biggest problems with health care as I see it, is that our government will not let the people create the market for it.  Or in other words, there  is such heavy regulation of the industry today, it does not work well in a country that functions best when free markets are allowed to work.  In a market economy, real competition would exist, you and I would be able to the drive costs down and quality of care up with our feet and our wallets.  But guess what?  It’s fixin’ to get more complicated.  And sadly, unless you are getting it at someone else’s expense, it is also going to get more expensive.

So, if you eat right, exercise, and take really good care of yourself, good for you.  Because your reward for being accountable for your own health will be that you get to pay for some fat slob’s lousy lifestyle.  All wrapped up in a nearly two thousand page document called “health care reform.”

The same men and women that brought us Social Security and then robbed it blind; who brought us Medicare and are vacuuming our wallets trying to pay for it, are now going to get into the health insurance business in a big way.  If history is any indicator of how this pig is going to fly, the average American can can count on higher taxes, lower quality of care, less competition and less transparency.  Unless we stand up and raise cain, we are in for a true BOHICA moment.

What ever happened to the KISS principle?  I heard a story once that when NASA was trying to figure out how to put men in space they spent millions of dollars developing an anti-gravity pen that would write in space.  I even remember when I was a kid, they used to hawk those things on the TV (along with Tang and those nasty peanut butter space sticks).  The Soviets solved the anti-gravity by sending their cosmonauts into space with a few pencils and pencil sharpeners.  

This whole thing has become a political hairball.  We are not going to see real true reform until our anointed and elected ones cough the damn thing up!