Why Is the Government the Health Care Boogeyman?

In the health care reform debate, it's baffling why it's the Federal government -- and not our New-Age Robber Barons -- that keeps getting accused of ineptitude, chicanery, and self-aggrandizement.
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Don't get me wrong, I believe in capitalism. You gotta love an economic system that offers you 435 kinds of toothpaste, from Colgate's Ultra White-Baking Soda-Cool Mint-Tartar Control-UltraSensitive, to Tom's of Maine's Rutabaga-Fennel Surprise. You just won't find that kind of innovation on the store shelves of Moscow.

But after all we've been through after the past several decades, I'm just mystified about why the government is still the bogeyman of choice with large sectors of our fellow citizens.

It's an article of faith on the Right that government just can't get anything right, that it's incredibly wasteful, incompetent, and only out to enhance its own interests. But let's look at the private sector through the window that we've been offered over the past 25 years or so.

The Captains of Finance brought us the S&L Crisis, the Internet Bubble, Worldcom, the Enron Collapse, and (if you needed reminding), AIG, Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, and Bernie Madoff.

We've seen the creation of arcane and indecipherable accounting practices that allowed banks and other financial institutions to misrepresent their earnings, avoid accountability, and over-leverage their investments into the stratosphere.

We've watched credit card companies flaunt well-established lending practices, adding fees and penalties, and jacking up rates for reasons that would be delightfully whimsical if they weren't so oppressive for their customers.

We witnessed first-hand the mind-boggling bonus pay arrangements that pervade every level of private industry. It's apparently based on the premise that people have to be bribed to do their job well. It's understandable, really. If you're paid a measly $2.7 million in salary and stock options, you're pretty much just going to just punch the clock at the office, unless they offer you some real cash.

So it certainly didn't come as a complete shock to learn that our New-Age Robber Barons enjoyed hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus pay, lavish parties, private jets, and golden parachutes, which they happily accepted even as their companies circled the drain.

Now that we're in the middle of the health care reform debate, it's bafflingwhy it's the Federal government that keeps getting accused of ineptitude, chicanery, and self-aggrandizement.

This is especially true when you consider that it's private health insurance companies that instituted the now familiar practice of disqualifying people for, well, being mortal. Heaven help you if you've found a concerning bump on your leg, and had an ingrown toenail removed when you were seven.

And the ruckus over the dreaded government death panels positively leaves me in stitches (another pre-existing condition). We've been living with death panels for decades. What other name can you use for corporate bureaucrats who gather in offices to decide (for unabashedly self-interested reasons) who will or won't receive treatment coverage for cancer treatment, congestive heart failure, or renal disease?

Of course, the Federal Government isn't blameless in all of these fiscal implosions, scandals, and general abuse of the American public. All too often it's happily obliged industry lobbyists through deregulation, lax oversight, and foot dragging on needed reforms (see above). Contrary to the hysterical characterizations of the Fox News-ians, Uncle Sam's behavior in this arena has been more reminiscent of Mister Magoo than Adolf Hitler.

Still, the government does a pretty reasonable job of administering Medicare, military medicine, Social Security, and even the much-maligned Postal Service. I sent off disk 2 of Friday Night Lights Season 3 to Netflix last Monday. And here is disk 3, just two days later, waiting for me in my mailbox.

As the Republicans always mockingly ask, do I really want to put some of our health care in the hands of the same people who run the post office?

Sure like to give it a try.

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