Health Care Hilarity

Senate Republicans are proposing a health care amendment "that would require not just members of Congress to enroll in any such plan -- but also the president, vice president, cabinet officials and all political staff."

As a person sympathetic to the health of humans in our country, there is no one more opposed to exposing the sick and injured to the same folks who brought us the housing bubble, the levees surrounding New Orleans, No Child Left Behind, and the multitude of other travesties that derived from empty political promises and departure from the natural economy. I am not in favor of exposing doctors and patients to bureaucrats for even poor folks, because anyone who is performing my brain surgery (or providing coverage thereof) should run the risk of being fired if they screw up. History has shown that people tend to do a better job when they have something to gain by it, and screw up less when they run the risk of getting fired. I am all for the sincere and compassionate mentality behind the public option, but it is really nothing more than the usual - interested politicians and businesses getting together to extract power and money at the expense of the least fortunate.

If everyone in Washington is bound by law to use the public option, there are two possibilities:

1. Government health care will be better than private health care due to legislation and coercion, depriving other health care ending in a government monopoly. (A public enterprise is never able to compete in the real world without money lifted from responsible and productive private companies). In this case, no one outside the Washington circle would be able to acquire decent health care. Perhaps this would force many concerned citizens to claw over more backs to win an office in government, just so they could care for a sick child or treat a debilitating illness.
2. Government health care will be worse than private health care due to legislation that fails to adequately lift funds from responsible and productive companies. In this case Washington will attract less potential candidates who need to care for a sick child or treat a debilitating illness. Also, this would prevent some with certain pre-existing conditions from entering politics altogether.
   

Either way, this scheme basically ends in total folly. And, if the politicians refuse to accept enrollment, what does that say about their confidence? What value are they placing on the lives and health of the poor compared to their own? Remember, they helped create many of these "poor" in the first place.