Congress In The Closet

What does a parent do when the children all go into a room together and lock the door? A sensible parent immediately wonders what on earth is going on. If these particular kids have shown a propensity for mischief in the past, he or she goes and finds out.
The kiddies are in their locked room. They are playing with our health care. They are gluing things together; they are tearing things apart. They may even have matches with them. And we have no way of getting the door open.
Don’t tell me I’m “insulting” Congress by equating them with secretive children who have locked themselves in a closet with lots of sharp implements hanging on the wall! That is a very fitting description indeed.
We already know that they will do nothing to put pressure on hospitals and other malefactors in rising health care costs. Rising, no. Exploding is the better word. As this week’s “Businessweek” points out—in an article everyone should read—in many Congressional Districts the largest single employer may well be a hospital.
They’re not going to bite the hand that elects them. “Businessweek” (p.40, 1/18) has a wonderful article on a hospital in northern Washington State that has found a way to cut costs to the point that they can do the job on what Medicare pays them—AND win all sorts of awards for superior health care. That’s as close to walking on water as humans get.
So it IS possible to reduce medical costs—there simply is no will to do it. And, trust me, none of it will get done inside a locked room where we who elect Congress have no idea what is going on. It is a safe bet that very little good is happening.
Logs are being rolled; backs are being scratched; nobody who contributes money is getting gored—and we are not privy to any of it. So much for Obama’s campaign promises, over and over, that the entire process would be transparent and public.
Nancy Pelosi has proclaimed that this is one of the most transparent legislative processes in history. (I suppose if she is comparing it to the inner deliberations of the Spanish Inquisition she may have a point.) What bald faced hypocrisy.
They have twisted and turned the legislative process inside out, upside down and tied it into knots—all to avoid the legal requirements for open and public debate. What will come out will not be the health care reform we have been promised.
It will be nothing like that which presidents for most of a century have pushed and pleaded for. It may do little more than give us a faster road to bankruptcy for our already tottering system. It could have done so much more than that.
All we “parents” can do is stand at the locked door and listen to the giggles, rustling and crashing going on inside the room. We can wonder: when the door finally opens, what on earth will finally emerge?