"Bite This!!"

"Charade" That's the word I finally settled on after contemplating the sum total of what transpired at yesterday's health care summit. "Charade: an absurdly false or pointless act or situation." Not unlike a fixed horse race, anyone with a shred of common sense knew before hand to bet the mortgage on the obvious result of this colossal waste of time.

The script of the proceedings was a predictable as a sunrise. The Democrats, lead by plaintive in chief, Barack Obama, opened the summit by reading excerpts from several letters forwarded to his attention that were employed to illustrate the dire straits of thousands of Americans who are allegedly suffering immeasurably from a lack of health insurance and thus emphasizing the urgent need for Congress to get down to the business of passing a comprehensive health care bill...the Democrats health care bill. Aside for stating the obvious, that the health care system in America is broken, this exercise had the underlying motive to set the stage to portray the Republicans in attendance as uncaring, heartless, "do nothing" bureaucrats, who collectively could give a rat's rear end about the plight of the average American. For the Democrats, this type of theater is, in the end, best defined as delivering heavy on assumption rather than clarifying substance.

Enter stage left, representative Louise Slaughter (Democrat - New York), who, in incredulous tones of shocked disbelief, delivered her singular example of why the Democrat's version of health care reform is the only viable means to extricate American from is current malaise. "I had one constituent - you would not believe this, and I know you won't, but it's true - her sister died. This poor woman had no dentures - she wore her dead sister's teeth, which were uncomfortable, did not fit. Did you ever believe that in America that that's where we would be?" I'm surprised there wasn't a dry eye in the room after that sob story. Assuming that the endless stories of gloom and doom are not in part total fabrications, the obvious answer that would be quickly attested to by everyone in that conference room and equally so by every citizen in America who heard this pitiful story is clearly "No."

That being said, here's the bottom line. Cut out all of the sob stories. Enough already! Americans are acutely aware that the sum total of health care in this country is completely out of control. It is either monetarily unobtainable for far too many, has too many restrictions, and is destined to bankrupt completely America's already floundering economy. We need health care reform...period. What we don't need is a bunch of entrenched demagogues sitting around a conference table or meandering the halls of Congress devoted to the unending quest of bolstering their own political partisanship and career longevity. This attitude of "Do it my way or else," has done nothing but enrage the electorate who have reduced Obama's job approval rating into the 40 percentile and Congress to the all time low of 10%. 49% of polled Americans have voiced the opinion that it would be better if the President and Congress did absolutely nothing than to pass the health care reform bill that is presently languishing in the Senate. Based on the outcome of yesterday's travesty, it appears that our so-called elected leaders are well on the way to accomplishing that goal. As a result the American people are the ultimate losers, being held captive by an ineffectual collection of bickering hostiles.

Given the opportunity to yet again witness another colossal waste of time as was the ultimate result of yesterday's health care summit, I'd sooner spend six hours glued to my television watching Olympic curling. That at least displays some semblance of dedicated activity. But to what end, I have no idea.