Health Care Reform and Sausage

It’s long been said that making legislation is like making sausage. Watching it being done is disgusting. As the New York Times reports, health care reform is just another foray into sausage-making.

As much as I believe that health care reform is in the best interest of employers and employees, I also believe that the way Congress is enacting reform is disgusting. Billed as something that will help and cover all Americans, it turns out that all Americans aren’t equal when in comes to the health care reform the U.S. Senate is on the verge of enacting.

In order to get the votes of certain Democratic senators playing hard to get, the Senate version of reform contains provisions that help only people in one Montana town, only people in Nebraska, only people in certain counties in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. only a health care center in Pennsylvania, only doctor-owned hospitals in Nebraska, only mid-size hospitals in Iowa, and only certain hospitals in Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts.

There are no doubt other special-interest reforms that haven’t been discovered yet. There will no doubt be additional special-interest reforms as the Senate and House attempt to reach agreement on one health care reform bill.

The truth is, of course, that we won’t know what the reform does, how much it costs, and whether we’re better off with the reform than without it until years, perhaps decades, have passed. I don’t know if there is a better way to make sausage, but there has to be a better way to pass legislation, particularly legislation designed to permanently change something as important as health care.