It occurred to me today that Obamacare is so American.

What I mean is, we Americans bend over backward to include private interests in what should really be a public matter. Consider student loans. The kind backed up by the federal government. Why does one have to go through private lender, one who takes all the interest, when it’s the feds who take all the risk? What value is the private lender adding? None that I can see.

Take military contractors. We end up with Blackwater scandals.

Take Medicare Advantage, the system whereby private insurers get to dole out Medicare benefits–after skimming off the top, of course. What value are they adding? None, apparently. Which is why Obamacare did away with it.

Then there’s Obamacare itself. We regulate the coverage, we insist that everyone has it, we penalize those who don’t, we subsidize those who can’t afford it–all done by the government. Yet who gets a piece of the action? Private insurers. Why? I can’t think of a good reason, other than to preserve their jobs. Medicare has proven quite well that the government can do a more efficient job at handling the tasks of running an insurance company.

I bet you can you think of other examples. Is the government really so deep in the pocket of business that they can interject themselves into every public affair? It seems so.