Happy Birthday Mom!

Had to get that in... The title should be... Which Devil do you want?

Doing some quick reading on the health care debate... Being that there is very little in terms of measurable and specific when it comes to the President's or the Democrats plan, the debate is hearsay versus worst case scenario. But something Yahoo said in their fact check article struck me as marginally hopeful.

A criticism of the health care bills was the claim that regular John and Suzie Q Taxpayer would have to change doctors due to the plans. Technically, there's nothing in the wording of either the House or Senate bills that demand this, but for many employers, paying the federal government fee would be cheaper than dealing with insurance companies directly. So if employers drop their coverage to save money, odds are in many cases someone will have to change doctors.

Remember when the creation of HMOs was the answer to health care issues? How well did that work? Creating a Department of Homeland Security, how well has that worked? Granted, no 9/11s since 9/11, but other than vastly increasing the size of the Fed and preventing some weenie from bringing a fingernail clipper onto a plane, how's that working for us? And at what monumental cost, when agencies were already in place to handle the problems?

I'm singing to the choir, I know, and I have yet to get to the hopeful aspect of the post, but I am struggling here to come up with an example of bureaucracy helping. Any takers?

There may actually be a stimulus effect from the release of companies from the health providing arena. I'm running a modest sized small business, say 250 employees, I probably have a two or three person human resources dept to deal with the health care BS. Tell my CFO to cut the check to the Feds and I can either get rid of my HR weenies or make them do useful work. :-)Tiny, small upside, and completely eclipsed by a trillion dollar avalanche approaching like the end of the Mayan calendar, but an upside nevertheless.