And You Thought 1000 Pages Was Bad

This past summer, Congress unveiled HR 3200, a health care reform bill introducing the "public option". That bill, which encountered incredible scruitiny and backlash from Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike, was more than 1000 pages long.

But recently, majority leaders in Congress topped their previous feat, introducing an edited version of HR 3200.
Was it reduced in size for efficiency? No.
Were the concerns of those opposed to a government takeover of health care taken into consideration? No.
Is it still 1,000 pages long? No.

The current version, fully amended on October 14, is now more than 1,900 pages long (that's almost double the original version!).

According to David Harsanyi's column in Real Clear Politics,

In the new world, your insurance choices will be tethered to decisions made by people with Orwellian titles ("1984" was only 268 pages!) like the "Health Choices Commissioner" or "Inspector General for the Health Choices Administration."

...

...as you flip through the pages of the House bill, you will notice the word "regulation" appears 181 times. "Tax" is there 214 times. "Fees," 103 times. As we all know, nothing says "affordability" like higher taxes and fees.

The word "shall" - as in "must" or "required to" - appears over 3,000 times. The word, alas, is never preceded by the patriotic phrase "mind our own freaking business." Not once.

There's a saying that goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If I was going to take that saying to the next level, it would go "And if it is broke, make sure you're actually fixing it, not making things worse."

With a price tag of almost a trillion dollars, I'm hard pressed to see how a government run insurance corporation will be any better than a privately run insurance corporation. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, health care is broken, and does need fixing. But before going ahead with anything, let's make sure the solution being presented will actually cure our woes, not put a Bandaid over one wound and tear open others.