Single Payer: It's time, so let's get on with it

Reading this title, you might think I'm gonna sermonize on the "health care crisis."

You would be wrong.

But I do find the concept of a "single payer" providing universal care, and keeping costs down, to be very appealing. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced that the care plan I have in mind is absolutely essential if we are to turn this economy around backwards.

Therefore, with pre-meditated after-thought, I'm requesting that President Obama immediately enact Single Payer Legal Care. This is, pure and simple, social justice, because everyone has a basic human right to accessible legal care. Sticking with the system we have is unacceptable, and we should ask those that defend the status quo just what they find so appealing and why.

The plan I envision would have all lawyers immediately become government chattel, with their salaries controlled by a "Lawyer Czar." The Czar would establish a living wage, and limit lawyers to that level of remuneration. Within that cap, lawyers would have to live with the same sort of reimbursement levels and timeliness that Medicaid providers do.

The PBO (Poppycock Budget Office) estimates that a 10% social justice fee on income of any form, including all transfer payments from Government, coupled with a 10% common good surcharge on all gross business receipts should cover the costs of a pilot program. It's probable that costs will exceed PBO projections, but that's not sufficient rationale for denying the fundamental humanity inherent in this plan.

Heck, people resisted CFL's and mercury pollution, and expanded production of ethanol, and if we had heeded their objections, we'd be missing out on all their benefits. Just ask those who clean out fuel systems and repair engines, and those in the hazardous disposal industry, whether it would have made sense to stay with the status quo.

Single payer legal care may seem like a draconian change to our system, but we can't make progress without such a transformation. Government is the only power with the compelling force of law to make it work regardless of the underlying flaws.

So, as our Dear Leader says, "buck up" lawyers and those who will bear the costs of such a legal utopia. Because we can all count on the government to buck it up as well.

At the same time, it's important that we all immediately show our support for just such a just policy by retiring all elected officials with law degrees at the end of their current terms, and from this point forward disqualify any such individuals from seeking elected public office. We're gonna need them in the trenches of accessible public legal care where they can be in touch with their inner sense of justice.

Come to think of it, while we're at it, how about single payer car care and single payer yard care? If that single payer had to pay for all the rust damage to our vehicles, maybe they could find something besides salt to throw on the roads in the winter - like sand, maybe.

Keep your eye out this weekend for ABA ads backing the plan for Single Payer Legal Care. We might even see a "Barry and Louweezie" ad where they sit at the kitchen table and agonize over how they're going to pay the legal costs of suing their neighbor for electoral malpractice.