No, I haven't read the health care reform bills currently before the Congress, either from the House or the Senate. But what has been reported about them leads me to think the abundance of verbiage is not so much designed to craft a careful law as to cover crafty lawmakers.

As usual, lawmakers are finding ways of getting their favorite slice of the pie. Don't want a public option? No problem. Get your state to opt out. Want federal funding for abortion? We can do that - and not do it, too. Did your state recently suffer a devastating natural disaster? Well, OK, we'll continue to pay the Medicare benefits for your elderly (you wouldn't vote against your own elderly, would you?). Need a little money for the local med school? Can do.

I like our form of government. In the wrong hands, however, it's a joke; worse, it's a travesty, just like these health care reform bills. Selfish people writing clever legislation to conceal sweetheart deals, set-asides, and pork, and all the while congratulating themselves on their civic achievement is not my idea of the American ideal.

Soon all this double-speak, pious gesturing, and swindling of the taxpayers will be over. And then, if things continue as they have for many years, it will all start over again. I hear there are a lot of Christians on Capitol Hill and even in the White House. If the health care reform bills are the best we can hope for from Christian politicians, then heaven save us from the Christians.

But not, of course, from Christ.

T. M. Moore