Fear & Loathing on Healthcare

Fear & Loathing on Healthcare.

So they did it. They had the vote as I napped after golfing, no news to be had early Sunday evening before the vote was taken.
I’m sure the cable news networks did it justice and made it into folks “watching history unfold” – I wonder if a chill ran up Chris Matthews’ thigh again, thinking about what Teddy Kennedy was thinking.
I can only imagine that many people in my neck of the Rust Belt are mad. They’ve bought the idea that the reform is pork-laden fat layered with socialistic bureaucratese, and they’re not entirely inaccurate in making that claim.
There are others who will be touting the passage like the second-coming of the polio vaccine that transformed America more than the Great Society did.
What I think should have been a provision in the law was something that banned, on passage, mention of “healthcare reform” for a fortnight in any print or broadcast media.
For that, I’d have bought into a single-payer system. Truth told, I don’t really care.
I’m still in the lucky age group: I’m a youngish man who’s healthy and I pay for health insurance I do not need and don’t fret too much about it because I understand that it’s my turn to dish out the money without getting something in return. I understand, my day will come. For now, it is my job in our convoluted life factory to be a feeder and provide cash to grease the wheels of most of the things that run.
So this bill is passed and whoop-ti-do! It’s supposed to right all wrongs. I won’t be surprised when it doesn’t. I also won’t be shocked when Karl Marx’s stamp on it isn’t found. We’re too greedy as Americans to be corrupted by anything but the most liberal socialism.
I’m sure there are legislative wastes in the law that will make us proud, backroom deals and sub-clauses crafted in smoke-filled rooms to calm the huddled masses in certain salamander-shaped gerrymandered political districts.
I’m also sure there’re some things to like in the legislation. Moreover, I hope there’re a few things in it that will please almost everyone. Doing something is better than letting our present system complete its suicide-mission.
I wished they left in the language about the death panels, it was the sole provision I whole-heartedly supported, but I understand that it is the graying-baby-boomers who are now the establishment power structure and they couldn’t stand for something as dangerous to them.
Now, I’d just enjoy a moment of silence, a time to digest and think – not talk – about what it all means to me?
I don’t need some television talking head to tell me, although I hope I get the chance to hear Rush’s rant about this tomorrow.
I won’t lie, if I can swing it, I’ll be listening.
But I won’t take the preaching to be gospel. Neither will I drink the White House Kool-Aid that Gibb & Co. will be handing out in equal measure.
Instead, I want silence. A simple, quiet moment. Time to ponder a point.
It won’t happen, but this won’t be the first time legislators have failed me.