The latest news on health care reform seems to be that Obama is willing to drop his plan for a public option.

Call me cynical, but my first thought was, “Terrific. It wasn’t enough that he sold out to the pharmaceutical companies. Now he’s caving to the insurance industry, too!”

The insurance companies, you see, fear they’ll have to compete with the public government-run option and … oh, never mind.

I’m still betting we end up paying a fortune (far more than any current predictions) for layers and layers of new health care bureaucracy — all to support a few measly, ineffectual new regs that get put into place via whatever watered-down piece of legislation finally makes it to the President’s desk.

And that’s if things go well. I dare not imagine how much worse our system might become as a result of the unforeseen consequences of various passages in a bill so lengthy that our lawmakers — busy doing really important things like pose for pictures or talk to reporters — never even read, much less fully understood.