Our elected officials have been arguing over the details of healthcare reform for a long, long time now. It remains unclear to me whether Congress will be able to pass a reconciled bill before its recess — and when it returns in January, those Senators and Representatives who didn’t get enough pork thrown their way to overcome their reluctance to vote in favor of something their constituents will not like them voting for will dig in their heels until they get some because the bill will have to start over again. In the meantime, all of the tears, fears, and jeers of the past half year’s worth of political debate have been for literally dozens of Congressmembers arguing, with great seriousness, vigor, and attitudes of public concern, about exactly how they are going to construct a very large pyre upon which huge portions of our money (or more precisely, our childrens’ money) will be burnt so as to further insulate favored segments of the medical services industry from the uncaring invisible hand of the free market, while our President insists that the trillions of dollars being spent on this project are somehow “cost-neutral” by fiat of calling them so while those Americans who actually pay for healthcare now inevitably wind up paying more money in taxes and higher insurance premiums, and wind up no healthier and live no longer or better lives than we would have had nothing changed at all.
