Sleight of Hand

Well in an apparently magnanimous gesture, the Obama Administration is sending signals that they are prepared to bow to the "fake" astro-turf roots trumped up phony pressure from all those hired insurance company goons that have been showing up to disrupt the Congress's peaceful town hall meetings.

They'll be telling us that this is a wonderful concession and that it won't destroy the insurance companies like everyone said and that this will not be just a wonderful little benign bit of legislation that helps some sick people get the help they need.

That's the hat, but where's the rabbit and what's up his sleeve - that's the trick. It's always misdirection with these folks. I knew a former missionary who used to get churches build using these kind of bait and switch tactics. It was in a holy cause, but I had to wonder what God thought about how we were getting our churches built.

Being Adventists in a Catholic country, getting churches built was sometimes difficult. The town fathers really didn't want any competing churches in the city and my friend found out pretty quickly that getting plans approved by the town council was pretty nearly impossible until they tried an old trick for getting approval from someone who didn't want to approve your project. It works like this:

First, they brought in 3 sets of plans for the proposed church. One set, the one they presented to the council first would be a huge ornate structure that looked like a cathedral that would dwarf the local Catholic church building. The town fathers were properly horrified.

Next they presented a very Protestant looking building along the lines of the Crystal Cathedral or something with a golden dome and an enormous lighted cross. They were further horrified.

Finally, our building committee presented the modest structure plan they had intended to build all along. The members of the town council were so immeasurably relieved that they voted instantly to approve the plans we'd wanted all along to construct.

I think this health care thing is the same tactic. So what's left in the health care bill that we're supposed not to notice? Well, how about access to our bank accounts, fines for the uninsured, expansion of government meddling in another American industry which they've already thoroughly screwed up just with Medicaid and Medicare alone.

We're inviting the camel to stick it's nose in the tent for no real benefit that I can see. We should be talking about cutting back government control of the health care system, not expanding it. We should take away the restrictions on doctors and the absurd pay systems with programs like Medicaid where providers wait 3 to 6 months for a check. We need to get the feds out of health care altogether and come up with something run at the state and local level that makes more sense. Give doctors tax incentives for doing pro bono work. Give local groups the power to figure out what works best in their communities. Quit trying to create a "system" that will work in every community in the nation. Big government-run bureaucracies are always woefully inefficient. They have the same problem as the carpenter who only had a hammer in his tool box. With only a hammer, every problem our carpenter encounters seems to call for a nail!

Let's just say, "No!" to ANY health care bill at all. There are surely options that allow health care to run on sensible free market principles without opening the door to even greater restrictions on our liberties and more new ways for the government to diddle in our lives.

How 'bout it? Had ENOUGH yet?

Just one man's opinion.

Tom King