Thanks to Dr Wes for this,
“Parents the world over know the magic of McDonald's Happy Meals. There's something about the promise of a Happy Meal - the way it's packaged, the free toy - young families and especially kids find them irresistible. But anyone who's purchased one of these knows the reality: that toys within the Happy Meal are typically played with for no more than three minutes and the plastic tchotchkes are discarded faster than the accompanying 2% milk.
There's a common sense saying: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true."
A complete meal for $0.99. (It may be small, but it’s what we promised.)
Even if we find that the $19.99 infomercial slicer/dicer doesn't work at home as it did on television, American's love the psychological reassurance that this time the government will make health care available to all without restriction, expense, or consequence, be they boys or girls, legal or illegal, young or old, right-handed or left-handed, with preexisting condition or not, - no one will be left behind in our new omnipotent era of Patient Protection and Affordability.
We should all know better, but the sad fact is, we're all suckers.
Not that some of the promises made wouldn't be useful, helpful, or even critical to many families. But to position health care reform (and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in particular) as a win-win with no hard choices, no limits to health care for our seniors, no future commoditization of medicine, unlimited access to procedures and doctors, and all with no enormous financial cost, is to stick one's head in the sand.
Package it, spin it, wrap it in plastic - then put it next to a cheeseburger.
No matter what you call it, it's still Hopium.”