Health care turkey

Just in time for Thanksgiving, the biggest turkey of the Holiday season was delivered to members of the U.S. Senate on Nov. 20 in the guise of America's Affordable Health Care Act of 2009. As scary as the prospects of passage of the bill portend to be, it would have been more appropriate to vote on the legislation for further debate a week prior, on Friday the 13th.

Brought about in no small part by interests in the health care industry, Harry Reid, Max Baucus and Nancy Pelosi intend to cram the turkey with an excess of stuffing and serve the monstrosity on a tarnished silver platter to Barak Obama in time for a Christmas Day feast at an inflated price to American taxpayers at a cost that would never be paid in full.

If in fact Democratic leaders successfully pull off the hard sell to the Senate majority, the turkey will be ridden with such levels of e. coli that hospitals, at no fault of their own, will become death camps to Americans who are deemed less susceptible to the H1N1 virus, namely the elderly, and the last group of citizens to receive the flu vaccine.

In an effort to express my concern about the health care reform bill, I shot an e-mail off to Florida Sen. Bill Nelson sometime around 2:30 a.m. Monday. After falling asleep about 4:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon from witnessing the moribund, grueling and exhaustive, yet effortless, game losing score of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, thereby maintaining the worst win-loss record in the NFL, I awoke restless and distraught at 10:30 p.m. with headlines lingering on my mind from Sunday's newspaper that, with a national debt of more than $12 trillion, and counting, the current $200 billion per year in interest payments will balloon to more than $700 billion within 10 years.

In part, the e-mail to Senator Nelson included, "At over 2,000 pages, the bill is much too long, most assuredly confusing and undoubtedly filled with unintended costly provisions that won't be fully realized until it's too late."

In reference to the prospects that too many amendments will be tacked onto the bill, "The only result of further debate on the issue will be 'porkification' of the bill and add more pages to the already cumbersome volume it has become."

And, "If passed, this legislation will create confusion, fear and further loathing of not only health insurance providers that have had too great an influence on the formation of the bill, but also the very government that brings [the bill] into law - namely the Democratic Party. If passed, I foresee voter backlash putting into jeopardy many of congressional contests in next year's mid-term elections, especially among Independents ... " Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Finally, "People are concerned about 'death panels,' which stems from a perception that restrictions may be put on certain procedures regardless the recommendation of a doctor/specialist."

As of this writing, the senator has not replied to the e-mail, a positive response considering he has more important duties to perform than commenting on what must be repetitive criticisms from other constituents.

The best bet would be for legislation to be renegotiated after next year's mid-term elections when Republicans will have a greater voice in drafting health care reform. Behind closed doors in a room with an air purification system, and outside the foul odor of special interest groups, perhaps they would "Get Smart" and discuss options underneath a "one of silence" as was used in the '60s television series so as not to be influenced by industry interests.

Limited to 777 pages, perhaps both the uninsured and taxpayers would come out winners with overall medical cost containment a bipartisan resolve and be less of a losing proposition to the national budget. Congress must rewrite the legislation that will show acceptance among American taxpayers and plainly reflected in national surveys and opinion polls.

Otherwise, dissatisfaction among voters of the direction President Obama is steering the country will continue to be a drag on his and Congress' approval ratings.

Enough is enough on health care legislation... and this commentary.

Thinking back to those droopy moments late Sunday afternoon, and discounting the 38-7 loss of the Bucs to saintly New Orleans, the biggest winner happened to be the Detroit Lions (2-8 record) and the one-point victory over the Cleveland Browns (1-9).

I chuckled that, by shear luck, the Lions have been able to avoid a repeat of the 2008 season of becoming the first team in NFL history to accomplish an embarrassing 0-16 record.

Let's hope that America's Affordable Health Choices Act is also defeated. A one-vote victory for American taxpayers would make us all winners.