The opt-out optical illusion

“Welcome to Washington.” The beltway equivalent of Saving Private Ryan‘s famous FUBAR acronym. A phrase that aptly conveys the utter bewilderment at what legislators pass off on an unsuspecting public. The health care donnybrook is certainly beyond repair, with success now measured by who (or what) damages least.

The latest incarnation weighs in at 1,900 pages, of which we’re sure each legislator will carefully consider before voting. But majority leader Harry Reid has a solution to the fear voiced from constituents. If individual states don’t want to participate in the public option, they simply opt out. Federal overlords will surely let them go. It fits with their counter-intuitive “choice” argument, that government involvement will somehow encourage competition to flourish and prices to fall. Well, states also have a “choice” on whether or not to participate at all. If it sounds like the mobster who wants out and is allowed to leave by the Don, only to have his car blow-up in the next scene, well … it’s because it is.