The Government Way – Health Care, just like your Founding Fathers’

Let’s consider how the Government will bring about Health Care Reform and deliver unto us the holy grail of universal coverage. The Government (our representatives) and their administrative might (the various agencies and bureaucracies) will bring about Health Care Reform by using the classic tools of their trade. They will construct and pass a bill, authorize one or more of their agents to administer and oversee the execution of the bill, commit public funds to cover the payments they have arranged to delivery to their advisors and supporters, and step back and watch the fun begin.

The first step, writing the bill: The House and Senate will each independently prepare one or more draft bill proposals. If you have ventured to look at and read (even a part) of any of these drafts then you will experience the wonder of governmental jargon-ism and obfuscated description. The politicians will announce that they crafted a plan that runs to hundreds or thousands of pages. The bill I have been reading is 615 pages long. If this seems overwhelming, don’t be fooled. The size is very misleading and represents no challenge whatsoever. The format of the bill is double spaced, printed in large font, and both left and right margins are, well let’s just say: W__I__D__E. The net effect is that there are only 25 lines on average to each page. Now add to this that there is a line numbers for each line, every section has sub-sections with sub-sub-sections, ….; and there are numerous section headers and references. They also have a great penchant for lists. Everywhere you turn there is another list of terms. This lists do chew up more space with fewer words, so the Government is at least saving on ink in order to achieve their mammoth bill. When you are done, you have say: 150 or to be generous 200 pages of content. I don’t mean to say, useful content; just content.

Before you will actually notice that the bill is fluffed-up to seem more imposing than it has any need to be, you will notice that it is general very difficult to read. It’s not that they have used particularly difficult or large words; but rather that they have apparently crafted a “See Spot Run” novel. They repeat the same words and phrases over and over again; it seems that there must be some need to remind the Representatives and Senators what the bill is about.

So the first step in crafting the vitally important Health Care Reform legislation is to use lots of words to say very little, and what little is said has been rendered cryptically convoluted and confusing. You would almost think that the most important objective that they had was to insure that no one would be able to determine that they apparently don’t know what they are doing. This of course is part of their method, because buried in the bill there actually are requirements that they will be imposing on how health care will operate in the country.