the official blog of the evergreen freedom foundation

We're now seeing an actual health care bill - a real piece of proposed legislation - in the House of Representatives.  Who knew that Rube Goldberg was in Congress?

 

Remember Rube? According to Wikipedia, Goldberg " is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways."

 

Goldberg's ideas were always best expressed visually. Let's look at the latest health care bill to come from House leadership:

 

 

Wow! Just shy 2,000 pages of what?  Here's how Goldberg would picture it:

 

 

This is Goldberg's famous self-operating napkin. It's a clever but very complex contraption designed to do a simple task. The problem is that if any thing goes wrong, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

 

But, the retort would go, when it comes to government programs, what could possibly go rong...worng...wong?

 

Here are a few thoughts from our friends at The Heritage Foundation - with a few snarks of my own added for the shear pleasure of it:

 

1. Check the Details for Yourself. Follow the link to the bill posted above, then peruse it.  Will you conclude, as do most, that Rube Goldberg couldn't have come up with a more complex scheme?

 

2. Keep an Eye Out for Budget Gimmicks. Congressional leadership is going to resort to shell games and budget gimmicks to make the bill look like it doesn’t add to the deficit.

 

3. Pay no Attention to Words, Check the Actions. Congressional Leaders say a lot of things. But taxpayers need to pay close attention to what they do. Where have we heard this before???

 

4. Don’t Trust New Promises. Duh!

 

 

6. Forget Competition. House leaders praise the “ Public Plan” as a force for competition. It won’t, of course; and that is precisely why prominent “single payer” advocates in the House and Senate, champions of a government monopoly, are its strongest supporters.

 

Maybe Rube Goldberg had help putting the bill together. Maybe P.T. Barnum, who said, "There's a sucker born every minute," was in the committee room with him.

 

There are alternatives - simple ones, common-sense-based ones, less intrusive and less costly ones. They're not hard to find. But what they are is a repudiation of the massive government takeover of one-sixth of the American economy. And isn't this what it's all about anyway: a big big-government power grab?

 

Even in the face of this, however, there are reforms in health care that could be implemented for the benefit of ALL Americans, not just the elite ruling class in Washington, D.C. and those who pack their bags and carry their water. Again, from The Heritage Foundation we're encouraged to consider these:

 

1. Promote state innovation. Maybe some good ideas can come out of 50 smaller experiments?

 

2. Establish fairness in the tax treatment of health insurance. Don't penalize consumers who buy their own by not letting them deduct the cost of insurance like companies can deduct the cost of the insurance they buy for their employees. Let the consumer drive the bus.

 

3. Get serious about entitlement reform. Medicare and Medicaid are sick - don't rely on them to be a part of the solution when they're a huge part of the problem. Instead, force real competition among health-care providers by letting Medicare and Medicaid-eligible citizens have choices and options that will drive costs down through competition.

 

These are crazy ideas, but they just might work! Dr. Rube Goldberg notwithstanding, that is...

 

The Piper