Allow Me To Say That I'm Pleased To Have An Opportunity To Participate In This Debate And BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA DIE DIE GAAK!

Frequent reader(s) of this blog probably wonder how their lives, once filled with so much promise, could have gone so spectacularly wrong...er...we mean are probably aware of our position on the health care "debate." Especially since we just wrote about it one post ago. Come on people, work with us here.

OK, OK, for those of you just joining us, we were saying that while cynical political operatives were moving behind the scenes to force people with eighth grade educations to learn how to Tivo Oprah and Jerry Springer so they cold go out to the local town hall meeting and scream incoherently, we were declaring a no fly zone around said dupes, preferring to wait for the real debate to be debated by the real debaters in this little psycho-drama: the legislators.

After all, these are the people charged with looking out for our welfare; the ones who must answer to us for their decisions; and the ones who, often forgoing a lucrative career in the private sector, have chosen to serve the public interest as our elected representatives.

These are the people we can count on to dispel the rumors and give us the straight up, unadulterated, unspun facts so we can enter into an informed discussion as a democratic society, leading from deliberation to consensus and ultimately compromise. We're talking about people like representative Paul Broun of Georgia, who recently went before his constituents to help them understand the complexities, potentials and pitfalls of the pending legislation.

"Folks, this is Obamacare," Broun said, holding the binders over his head. "Let me start this by telling you what I think of this bill and Obamacare," he said, and slammed the binders on the ground.

Urm...we thought the legislation was called America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, not Obamacare, but could have missed a memo. And "slammed"? Slammed Mr. Newspaper Reporter? Are you sure you're not taking liberties with the situation here? We mean, "slammed" would indicate a certain mental state, a certain level of emotion not necessarily conducive to intelligent discussion, right representative Broun?

Broun set the tone for a town hall meeting on health care reform. The Democrats' proposal is too expensive and will threaten millions of Georgians' jobs and lives, he said. "This is a stinking, rotten fish, and they don't want you to smell it, and they want to shove it down your throat and make you eat it before you smell how rotten and stinky it is," he said.

There...ah...well, OK let's give Mr. Broun the benefit of the doubt here. Starting a discussion with a...erm...lively metaphor is just a way to get people's attention and focus their concentration. Now, the part about a bill that actually expands health care being a threat to people's lives is a little confusing to us, but we're sure Mr. Broun meant that in a good way.

At another point, Broun, who last year made national news by comparing Obama to Hitler, called Cuba's former dictator Fidel Castro and leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Obama's "good buddy." He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law. "They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically."

We know what you're thinking but come on, these days you can't hardly have a conversation about the weather without being called a Hitler for suggesting an evening shower will wash out the local baseball game. And look at what you've learned: did you know Castro and Chavez were co-sponsors of the bill? Ha! Us neither. And how about the history of Reid, Pelosi and Obama taking over by spreading diseases? We do have to admit that we sometimes didn't pay full attention in history class, so it's probably our fault we don't know about that.

Many speakers in the senior-heavy audience honed in on a clause in the health care proposal that would require insurers to cover end-of-life counseling sessions to help healthy patients decide beforehand what types of treatments they want to keep them alive if they are about to die. "(Obama) is going to let the old folks die, and I don't like that at all," Oconee County resident Gene Aycock said.

While it's true that it's very unusual for an old person to die under the current health care system, that is putting a severe strain on Social Security and Mr. Obama just had to make some hard choices. Nothing personal Mr. Aycock.

Citing a study by the Lewin Group, a consulting firm owned by the insurance company UnitedHealth Group, Broun said 114 million Americans will be forced off their employers' insurance plans and onto a competing government-run plan because small businesses will not be able to pay for the mandated insurance.

Oh, yeah baby! Finally some objective facts. See, we told you all that stuff about fish and Hitler was just to warm up the crowd. Now we're getting down to the nitty gritty. OK, so the Group of the first part creates the Group of the second part and then commissions the Group of the second part to do a study on how changes in the health care system will affect the business climate in which the Group of the first part has to operate. The Group of the second part finds that things couldn't get much better for the Group of the first part than they are right now under the status quo, so the Group of the second part creates a scenario in which, if a certain set of events were to exist, certain things might happen to the hypothetical people involved in this potential situation. And those aforementioned possibilities would be bad. Um, for the people. For the hypothetical people in the hypothetical situation. If it happened. God we love to see science in action.

Broun proposed an alternative to the Democrats' plan that includes allowing groups of people like University of Georgia graduates or Rotary Club members to band together to cut insurance costs, restricting malpractice lawsuits, expanding health savings accounts, offering Medicaid recipients a choice of private plans, making all health care expenses tax-deductible and expanding state insurance programs for people with pre-existing conditions.

Excellent idea representative Broun. Everyone knows the states are in a far better position to expand health care with all the associated costs than the federal government, right governor Perdue?

FY 2010 budget is expected to be short $800 million. Without the availability of reserve funds Governor Perdue may need to lower the revenue estimate by as much as $1 billion. the state will go into FY 2011 facing a deficit of more than $1.5 billion.

1.5 billion? Yikes. Probably no point in asking those Rotary guys for a loan out of the money they saved by banding together, huh?

One woman attempted to ask a critical question about covering the uninsured while Broun was speaking, and Habersham County sheriff's deputies briefly removed her from the room before allowing her back inside. When she rambled for a few seconds during the designated question-and-answer period, Broun politely asked her to respect the people waiting to speak, but members of the audience shouted, "Cut her mike."

Darn straight. We're trying to have a debate about health care over here. We don't need anyone asking about uninsured people. They don't have any health care in the first place. Jeez man, why do we even let those people in the door?