Temp Reads $10,000,000,000,000

For those of you that thought most politicians had a stick up their what'sits, it's not exactly a stick - it's a thermometer.

It seems a shame that our Congresscritters and Senatorpeople can't actually look at the healthcare situation in this country without first checking their temperature with Aetna or Cigna or whichever insurance company is paying the bills this month.

It seems very simple to me: if we mandate that people have insurance, and the government is willing to help pay for health insurance for poor people, and we don't have a public plan in place, what do you think the big insurance companies and big pharma companies are gonna think? I'll tell you:

Cha-CHING!!!

It's going to be Halliburton & KBR all over again, except now we're talking health insurance, instead of army showers that double as execution chambers and food that doubles as bioweaponry. Assuming the government wants to make sure they don't piss off the big industries that pay for their campaigns, all of these contracts will likely be some form of "cost-plus" system. Which means the insurance industry will be guaranteed a profit (duh), only now, the taxpayers will probably be paying more for it than we have been.

I've not been blogging about this yet, simply because the more time passes on this issue, the more complex it all grows. That everyone has shied away from the single-payer system the whole country (except for the dittoheads) seems to want is bizarre enough. Jim DeMint of S. Carolina has even suggested that if Obama doesn't get his public option, this could be "his Waterloo" in relatively hopeful tones. Bill Kristol has stated that instead of letting the process play itself out, the Repugs should "go for the jugular," and make sure that Obama's failure is splattered all over the mediascape, in order that Obama loses the next election, and perhaps the Rs can regain some lost seats in congress. Nice to know that what matters most to some Repugnicans is Obama's failure, not the public's needs.

I know - what else is new?

So here we are, with a Democratic president and a Democrat-controlled House and Senate and still, healthcare is too big a nut to crack. If that doesn't tell you that something is wrong with both the Democratic Party and the way we do politics in this country, well, I can't write letters that large.