A Funny Thing Happened While Waiting at the Tire Shop

An interesting observation struck me yesterday as I waited at a local tire shop for some work to be done on my car. A conversation broke out about health care. I am positive it was NOT organized by the RNC. No AstroTurf was in sight. Not even a single, solitary, synthetic blade.

Of the six individuals waiting for their vehicles, none wanted the Obama administration of congress running America's health care system. Six uniquely American individuals, seniors, middle aged, veterans, male, female, none of who wanted or trusted universal health care. As I believe I wrote in a prior blog, "you can dress up a pig and call it a cow but it is still a pig".

Another observation was that the conversation centered around distrust of governments ability to run health care and the costs associated with it. Treatment cost, insurance costs, Medicare costs, and Washington's seeming inability to pay for the obligations it currently has without the addition of at LEAST 1 TRILLION dollars of additional spending for health care. It was the consensus amongst us that 1.) Costs are out of whack with normal society, and , 2.) Government has shown itself unable to control any costs or afford any additional ones.

These were the two things that seem to be at the crux of what the American people oppose in the current proposals. Everyone I was speaking with had the understanding that nothing had as yet been actually decided in Washington. But HR3200 has made it out to the general public and, by a fairly significant margin in my observations, has not been well received.

Once HR 3200 leaked out it was crystal clear to most of us why the White House and Congress wanted this legislation rammed through in two weeks (before the August recess). What was supposed to be a break filled with feel good meetings touting the wonderful benefits of Universal Health Care has turned into a frank and oft times heated discussion by the American people on the flaws and fears HR 3200 has generated.

It is quite simple really. With medicare and social security bankrupt, Senior citizens are losing confidence in government. Those of us in our 30's to 50's are just seeing one financial boondoggle after another and we seriously doubt governments ability to be both honest and competent not to mention financial secure. This presents a problem to both the Obama administration and Congress. Should they be voted out if they continue to ignore the American public? Should we vote them out and replace them with people who have a better idea what being a public servant means? We will see what the public does at the polls in 2010.