Sounding Off:

There’s a very big dose of unpalatable medicine coming out of Washington, D.C., these days. Both the House and Senate versions of proposed health-care-reform legislation — more than 2,000 pages each — will mandate that every American buy health insurance or pay a tax. Those who refuse to get health insurance and who fail to pay the tax penalty, for turning down coverage, could be sent to jail. That, my friends, will be the first time in American history that U.S. citizens will be forcibly coerced into buying something — anything — or be declared a criminal. By the way, has anybody determined whether such a mandate is constitutional? It surely must be, as nearly everyone working for the new administration is a lawyer, and lawyers certainly wouldn’t do anything unconstitutional, would they?

And the irony of this scenario, as codified in both bills, is that those who don’t play nice and are sent to the Graybar Hotel will be given free health care, to include vision, dental and psychiatric coverage.

Is it just me, or are there others out there who think our lawmakers might benefit from a little bit of that psychiatric help also?

By the way, it’s also ironic that it takes 4,000-plus pages of proposed legislation to reform health care. Compare that to the 4,500 words contained in the original Constitution of the United States of America.

Maybe our lawmakers could also use a briefing on the benefits of brevity.

What if several hundred thousand — or even a couple of million — Americans simply choose to rebel against being ordered to do something they don’t want to do by those they don’t like, don’t respect and don’t trust? And, considering that judges have already ordered the Governator to release up to 40,000 of California’s hardened criminals because of overcrowding, and that other states may well be in this same pickle, where would the government put us if we all simply said “no”?

And if we did, maybe this whole insane debacle would simply come apart like a dime store watch. It’d be fun to find out, wouldn’t it?

CHUCK CASSITY lives in Costa Mesa.