George,

Did you ever imagine that Alice’s Wonderland could come to life? Here are some examples of the Wonderland of the health care policy debate:

1. We must prevent the public from being able to choose a government-run health insurance plan because it may be too cost-effective and serve its clients too well. It may be too popular.

2. Government cannot run anything well. It is inefficient and incompetent. But a non-subsidized, government-run health insurance option would be so efficient and well run that private insurers would not be able to compete with it.

3. Keep the system we have now even though, inherently, it means that concern for patients is secondary. The major concern of private insurers is to protect their bottom line, not your bottom. (The incentive of private insurers is to deny coverage whenever possible when called by your doctor for authorization of a treatment. )

4. We should stop subsidizing private insurance companies that compete with Medicare through the Advantage program and use that money to subsidize private insurance companies. (This new subsidization would be done through individuals who would be given tax rebates to help pay for their private insurance premiums.)

5. In 1993, health care reform was considerer unnecessary because competition among private insurers would keep premiums down. Experience in the past 15 years has proven quite the opposite. But let’s continue the present system a few more years and see if things don’t change.

6. Opponents of health care reform do not believe in the right to life and liberty – not when it comes to health care. They believe that government has no role in protecting life by assuring that everyone can get life-saving medical treatment, and they believe that it is not their problem if some unfortunate people are held captive by a debilitating disease.

7. Whenever the President reaches across the aisle, his hand is slapped with insults, disrespect and lies. Solution: keep reaching across the aisle until rigid ideologues change.

8. We must have a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes in the Senate because a real, old-fashioned filibuster would take too much time. It could take a week or two for a filibuster to run its course – with the filibusterers finally running out of energy to keep speaking day and night. Such delay is unthinkable. Therefore, we must take until Thanksgiving to see if we can come up with a watered-down piece of legislation that can garner 60 votes.

Lewis Carroll would have a field day with these real world examples.

David RePass(Electronic mail, September 12, 2009)