If the blunders continue, the Affordable Care Act will begin to take on the appearance of a poorly conceived plan, hastily implemented with incomplete data, bully-pulpited into law behind closed doors, sold to a fearful and sentimentally naive American public, financed by incomprehensible amounts of dollars floating in a digital cloud, with the potential to create unintended and irreversible life-changing consequences of massive proportions. Hmmm?

Where have I seen this before? Oh! The Iraq War! Oh! The banking crash, housing market crash, bundling and derivatives. Nancy Pelosi's sale pitch is sounding more like George W. Bush's weapons of mass destruction logic or hustle, if you prefer. Power plus emotions plus manipulation equal "oops, we did it again."

Six years -- six years is all it will take to remind Washington who they are and what we elect them to do. Vote out incumbents for six years. Freshmen legislators will know why they have been elected and have to use common sense and good business practices if they wish to keep their jobs; both party machines will wonder what happened and those who buy their votes won't know whom they can trust and who is for sale. It's a win-win!

Aren't we ready yet? Can we afford to live with more politics as usual and bury our heads in the sand until gangrene makes amputation the only choice? We need real change and we're the only ones who can do it! Drastic conditions call for drastic measures. Vote' em out!

BOB HOGAN
Beaver