Health Care Reform Dinner Theater

America Wants To Know is pleased to present a choose-your-own-ending production of "Who Killed Health Care Reform?"

Possible Ending Number One:

Senator Joe Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut, stays up late into the night on December 23rd, reading the polls by firelight. In the car on the way to the Senate the next morning, he has an epiphany and becomes a Republican. He casts the deciding vote against the health care reform bill after an impassioned speech calling for lawmakers to renounce corrupt deals and start over from scratch. He is celebrated on Fox News Channel as a maverick and his new party promises him seniority on a bunch of good committees.

Possible Ending Number Two:

The Senate votes 60-40 to pass the health care reform bill and it goes to conference in January, where everything in it is thrown up in the air again for lobbyists and lawmakers to bat around. The bill is written in a locked room by the glow of ten iPods running an app that imitates a lighter. The bill goes back to the House, where it passes, and to the Senate, where it fails. Everybody blames President Obama.

Possible Ending Number Three:

The Senate passes the health care reform bill on Christmas Eve and it goes to conference in January, where everything in it is thrown up in the air again for lobbyists and lawmakers to bat around, and the bill is written in a locked room, and when it comes out no one has time to read it and it's shoved through the House and Senate with not a single vote to spare. President Obama signs it in a triumphant White House ceremony and then copies are distributed so everybody can find out what they just passed. A week later, two hundred million Americans get letters from their health care providers telling them that everything is now different and some of it is more expensive. A roar goes up that can be heard on Mars. Congress scrambles to fix a hundred provisions of the new law, but too late, the voters throw out most of the Democrats and some of the Republicans and when the new Congress arrives in 2011, the first thing they do is repeal the whole mess.

Wait, wait, hold everything, America Wants To Know has just received an urgent text message from the White House ordering us to present their side of the argument.

All right.

Possible Ending Number Four:

The health care bill passes and everyone gets everything they want at everybody else's expense. When it is pointed out that nothing in the bill adds up, Congress goes into special session and repeals the laws of mathematics. South Carolina secedes from the Union and within three hours 49 states follow. President Obama announces in his State of the Union address that he plans to bring hope and change to the Washington D.C. public schools and also a couple of the subway stations.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Gazing into the future" and "Yes we can and no we won't."