A few weeks ago, several individuals in the office where I work were all over the health care reform initiative as Socialist. They whined and complained ad nauseum about Obama, redistribution of wealth from their pocket to those not fortunate enough to have insurance, and on and on and on.

But then the light went on. And it wasn’t pretty.

My employer distributed the new insurance benefits packages for next year, and you would have thought

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In a recent article on The Huffington Post, Andy Myer asked “Why Is the Government the Health Care Bogeyman?”"

My comment was as follows:

“It ain’t rocket science, Andy my boy. The government is a fat, bloated, out-of-touch mass of bureaucratic pencil pushers who couldn’t decide on a plan to get themselves to the bathroom without spending a million dollars studying the route, another million developing the regulations to get them there, another million to publish those regulations, another million for people to enforce those regulations, another million for people to manage the people who enforce the regulations, another million to manage the people who manage the people who enforce the regulations, another million to study why people don’t follow the regulations because they can’t understand said regulations, another million to prosecute the people who don’t follow the regulations because they don’t understand said regulations, another million to rewrite the regulations to make them more understandable, rinse, spin, repeat.”

It occurs to me that death panels have been hard at work in the U.S. health care system for quite some time. These panels tell you which procedures you can have and which one’s you can’t, in spite of what your doctor tells you. These panels tell you what your insurance company will pay for and what it won’t, in spite of what your doctor says you need. These panels will turn you away and watch you die.

These panels exist in

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Hey. AARP crowd. You’re being played.

Are you really stupid enough to believe that the government is going to fiddle with your end of life decisions? Are you dumb enough to believe that Senator Charles Grassley is anything except your run of the mill, truth twisting politician? Do you really believe he gives a rat’s backside about you or your problems?

Here’s the deal: There is a way you can lose in this health care debate. But, it’s not the way you think. Read more »

77% of Americans say "yes" to the choice of a public option. That’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for our so called "representatives" in Congress.

What say we put the Public Option on the 2010 ballot as a public referendum and take it out of the hands of the 5-year-olds who toddle the halls of the world’s largest daycare center (a.k.a. the U.S. Capitol building)?

By the way, my back-channel Wall Street sources indicate the U.S. Congress is the biggest consumer of diapers and pacifiers in the free world.

Leave me a comment and let me know if you favor a referendum on the public option and why, or why not.

Although I said I wasn’t going to say anything more about healthcare reform, there is a new development that compels me to resubmit this post for your consideration.

Here’s the deal: The polls were clear. They were sliced and diced, and the results were still the same: 72% of Americans wanted a Public Option.77% of Americans still support the choice of a Public Option!

Now, amidst a massive amount of throat clearing, hedging, and deer-in-the-headlights looks, We The People are being told that the Public Option is more or less dead. My congratulations to all you town hall screamers, GOP organizers, and health care and insurance company lobbyists. You have just managed to do the very thing the Constitution was designed to guard against.

You have taken over the United States of America. The revolution is over. You won.

Who would have thought that it would be a bloodless coup? Who would have considered that the people of the United States would go out not with a bang, but a whimper. Who would have thought that not one shot would be fired, not one body buried, not one building set ablaze?

You deserve kudos. You really do. Because, you understood more than anyone else that the U.S.Congress, and thus America, was for sale. You saw before the rest of us that the Statue of Liberty is not a symbol of freedom and democracy, but a street corner whore available to whoever has a buck to shove her way.

All you screamers and organizers and lobbyists deserve a lot for this, and I hope you get everything you deserve. As for me, you will not see another post here about health care reform.  Because, as I said: (Okay, I lied.)

The war is over.

There’s a dirty little secret to this health care reform debate. It’s something no one’s talking about. But, it’s out there just the same. Headed straight for a lot of us like an asteroid headed toward the planet.

Take a look at this chart put together by CalculatedRisk.

It shows how unemployment has tracked over time by education level.

See the red line? Read more »