I'm a devoted Monty Python fan, and of course one of my favorite bits is the Spam skit. It goes like this: a husband and wife go to a cafe, where Vikings incongruously sit at a nearby table. The waitress is reluctant to give them a dish that does not contain Spam:

Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;

Vikings (chant): Spam spam spam spam...

Waitress: ...spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam...

Vikings (sing): Spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!

Waitress: ...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.

Wife: Have you got anything without spam?

Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.

Wife: I don't want ANY spam!

Man: Why can't she have egg bacon spam and sausage?

Wife: THAT'S got spam in it!

Man: Hasn't got as much spam in it as spam egg sausage and spam, has it?

Vikings (sing): Spam spam spam spam... (Crescendo through next few lines...)

Because the words "spam" eventually drown out all meaning in the skit, we've named unwanted email after the skit: spam mail. Today, there's a new construct equally deserving of the name "Spam": the megalithic document labeled HB3300, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid health care overhaul bill.

Ever try to read this monster? Here's an excerpt, borrowed from a most enlightening review:

HB 3200, pages 26-30, SEC. 122, ESSENTIAL BENEFITS PACKAGE DEFINED:

(a) IN GENERAL.—In this division, the term ‘‘essential benefits package’’ means health benefits coverage, consistent with standards adopted under section 124 to ensure the provision of quality health care and financial security . . .

(b) MINIMUM SERVICES TO BE COVERED.—The items and services described in this subsection are the following:

(1) Hospitalization.

(2) Outpatient hospital and outpatient clinic services . . .

(3) Professional services of physicians and other health professionals.

(4) Such services, equipment, and supplies incident to the services of a physician’s or a health professional’s delivery of care . . .

(5) Prescription drugs.

(6) Rehabilitative and habilitative services.

(7) Mental health and substance use disorder services.

(8) Preventive services . . .

(9) Maternity care.

(10) Well baby and well child care . . .

(c) REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO COST-SHARING AND MINIMUM ACTUARIAL VALUE . .

(3) MINIMUM ACTUARIAL VALUE.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—The cost-sharing under the essential benefits package shall be designed to provide a level of coverage that is designed to provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to approximately 70 percent of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the reference benefits package described in subparagraph (B).

Now, can you tell that this section of the bill actually makes health-care savings accounts combined with catastrophic health insurance (the sort of health coverage beloved by the employees of Whole Foods) illegal? I'm pretty smart and have a good education, and my job is focused around using words, and I had no clue that was the effect of this section until I stopped and re-read it -- and picked up on the meaning of that "70 percent of the full actuarial value" part. The ramifications of this bill are purposely unclear. The writers of the bill do not want you to know that this section eliminates an entire class of health coverage that Obama promised "you can keep."

In short, much of this bill is spam-language -- wording deliberately introduced to obfuscate the true intentions and results of this entirely new health care structure. Also, like the spam skit, you have to take what they're dishing out -- no a la carte choices for you, sir! You'll have spam and LIKE it.

Well, no matter how you dress Spam up, it's still -- SPAM. (Apparently the Obama administration likes spam a lot.)

I propose that at least some of the town hall goers organize and insist that their representatives make appointments with them to go over the bill, ten pages at a time -- and demand that you be allowed to record the session. This will do two things: it will ensure that at least your representative has read and has some understanding of the bill -- giving him or her no wiggle room to insist that they didn't realize what they were voting on; and it will enable you to enlighten everyone else, ten pages at a time, about what our representatives actually intend with this bill.

I'm sure that podcasts of these sessions would be most enlightening, in more ways than one.

** If you want to read more on Whole Foods' CEO's take on how health care SHOULD work, look at this speech he gave in 2004, when his plan was still experimental. The good results he had by that point, and the way he carefully managed the introduction of it, really exemplify the way our government should be approaching health care reform. How tragic that they have blinders on in this area.