EDITORIAL: Grotesque

Nov. 3--There is poetic irony in the fact that Congress will be debating Nancy Pelosi's hyperstatist vision of health care in America while Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As Paul Hollander, a sociology professor emeritus, recently observed, the fall of Communism

No doubt Pelosi sleeps well at night. But the 1,990-page bill she unveiled last week is a prescription for disaster. If the previous House bill bordered on absurd, this one borders on grotesque. Its interventions in the economy are at once gargantuan -- imposing direct costs of more than $1 trillion, and God-only-knows how much more in indirect costs -- and microscopic: The bill mandates, among countless other things, nutritional labeling requirements for retail restaurant chains that have 20 locations or more, as well as information about recommended daily caloric intake "to enable the public to understand, in the context of a total daily diet, the significance of the nutrition information that is provided."

The bill imposes punishing new taxes, including an 8 percent payroll tax on any business that does not offer insurance coverage or pay more than 72.5 percent of premiums. It imposes an unprecedented individual mandate and slaps any American who does not comply with a 2.5 percent tax on adjusted gross income.

The bill expands government power even further by creating a new position, with the Orwellian title of health choices commissioner, empowered to dictate not only how the government-run public option would operate, but also how private insurance companies must operate, what they must offer, how much they must charge, and so on. (As the Heritage Foundation notes, "the Health Choices Commissioner's job is, essentially, to make your health choices for you.")

The Pelosicare bill is longer than War and Peace but less pleasing to read (excerpt: "In General -- Section 1833(t)(3)(C)(iv) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395(t)(3)(C)(iv)) is amended -- (A) in the first sentence -- (i) by inserting '(which is subject to the productivity adjustment described in subclause (II) of such section)' after 1886(b)(3)(B)(iii) . . . ."). Yet the language it uses is telling: It refers to regulation 181 times, tax 214 times, and uses the word shall more than 3,000 times.

If the goal simply were to expand coverage and lower costs, that could be achieved easily enough by ending the prohibition on selling health insurance across state lines, thereby encouraging competition instead of quasi-monopolies, and providing a voucher to the uninsured poor with which they could then buy policies. But this is clearly not the goal of the current regime in Washington.

To the contrary, the obvious aim is to make private insurance more costly and less tenable, thereby funneling consumers into a public option that will, over time, morph into the only available option. Democrats in D.C. are striving, brick by brick, to corral Americans into a system of, by, and for the government.

"It will take some hammering to drive a coddling socialism into America," Santayana observed. House Democrats are now hammering away, with a clear conscience.

To see more of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesdispatch.com . Copyright (c) 2009, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com , call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.