One of the biggest problems in the health-care debate and America today is actually one of perception. We hear over and over that America has a health-care “;crisis”; or that health care is “;broken.”; The reality is that most Americans receive quite good care when compared with most of the rest of the world. Yet Congress is behaving in crisis/emergency mode. It is willing to risk everything else in this country for a health-care plan that has no record of lasting success elsewhere and will cripple an already weak economy for years to come.

The other perception problem is how Americans see themselves. We have forgotten who we were, are and more importantly, can be. We have forgotten that we were the ones that gave birth to modern republic democracy. We led the world in defeating Hitler's Nazism and freed much of the world in World War II. We defeated the global threat of Soviet Communism (ironically, we are becoming them). We led the world in the war against terror. That is a lot of which to be proud. We have to stop behaving as if we are such a hopeless people that our only alternative is to sacrifice our rights and independence to a faceless government-run health-care agency. I fear that someday we may be celebrating Dependence Day, instead.

This monstrous—1,000 pages and growing—health- care plan was born of cynicism, not hope. We no longer believe in America or ourselves but are willing to put blind faith in a massive bureaucracy. We forget that eventually we will be putting our health care into the hands of an IRS-like monolith that will dispense health care according to a set of massive manuals of regulations, loopholes and exceptions that Congress will add to each year.

Yes, we should be trying to improve health care. But a massive overhaul?

Destroy a health care system that is the envy of most of the world in favor of something that is unproven, will not work as advertised and will cripple the economy for decades to come?

Some of our congressmen are drooling over the extra pay day a monstrous-sized bill like this means. With so many regulations and rules, they have so much room to be “;paid”; for amendments, exceptions and loopholes that will favor whatever special interest group (insurance company, medical group, pharmaceutical company, health-condition advocate group) that is willing to pay them in campaign contributions and favors.

I suspect that quite a few of the proponents of this bill already know that it is unworkable. But it gets their foot in the door. Each new year will be an opportunity to add to the bill to “;fix”; whatever is not “;perfect.”; Eventually, Congress will throw its hands up in the air and say that the only way to “;fix”; it is a complete takeover of health care by the federal government.