Belle Menzogne(Healthcare Reform as La Vita Nuova)

"Fili mi, tempus est ut praetermictantur simulacra nostra."
(tr. My son, it is time for our false images to be put aside.)
--------Dante, La Vita Nuova, XII.



Let us pretend to take the Health Insurance Industry's final
"report" before the Committee Vote on the Baucus' Bill seriously.
Inhabit a bizarro world where an industry doesn't want the Federal
Government Mandating, by law, all citizens be consumers. Act
shocked when they issue a given as if it were a threat, "We're
gonna raise premiums anyway."

These "beautiful fictions" merely served to provide "Dante"
Baucus a screen obloquy to protect anyone from finding out
his ardent labors for his one true love, Beatrice. Honorably, she,
the Health Care Insurance Industry, has rewarded her Cavalier
Servente with a cry of chaste consternation.

Honor is not lost. Nothing has changed on either side.
These false images set aside all truth(real reform) and give
up the Healthcare Domain to the Insurance Industry(Beatrice).
Our "Dante's" heart is wounded but La Vita Nuova must go
on. He, no longer a boy, is made man.

Our next encounter features "Dante" Baucus writing his
Divina Commedia wherein Beatrice is lifted up to the Mystic
Rose in 8th Heaven. It also depicts the travails of the "Pilgrim",
a Health Care "Consumer", enduring the Inferno and Purgatory
of health services to view Paradiso. The devout "Dante"
Baucus has "laid up treasures" and is rewarded in holy 
matrimony with eternally desired Consummation. 
Those treasures help our ardent lover rise above his mundane,
"vulgare", station as a Cavalier Servente for hire.

(belle menzogne, tr. beautiful lies)