A few months ago, my five-year-old son suffered from a case of torticollis (wry neck). In effect, torticollis is a muscle spasm that leaves ones neck immobilized and in great pain. The malady struck him suddenly during church, and by Sunday afternoon we found ourselves in the emergency room of one of our local hospitals.

I am happy to report that we received excellent care; it was professional, kind, and swift (we signed in, underwent triage, saw a doctor, received a diagnosis, and were on our way to the pharmacy with a prescription for pain medication in approximately 90 minutes).

There are two major hospitals in our community of approximately 200,000 inhabitants. One is located in the heart of the city. The other is located across the highway on the edge of the area's two most successful suburban towns. Both are state of the art medical facilities with world-class doctors and personnel.

However, our urban hospital has recently secured approval for its longtime goal of following the other into the suburbs (The suburban hospital moved away from its urban location twenty years ago).

Part of the problem for our urban hospital? Emergency Care. Unfortunately, the facility in the city has a near-monopoly on non-paying clientele.

I am not a rich person, but I am privileged to have health care subsidized by my employer (FYI: I chose the suburban emergency room).

I am not unsympathetic to those families who do not share my good fortune. I would like every person in America to have good healthcare.

What can be done?

For the life of me, I cannot get my arms around this SCHIP face-off. Like so many other Washington smack downs staged for cable news networks and hyper-interested partisans, this veto drama has been politicized to the point of confusion. Generally, in these moments I consult some of the less-political, more common-sense oriented pundits and pols--and see what they say.

This one is tough because a lot of the Senators I like (Orrin Hatch for one) have weighed in against the White House. The President's team seems confused and off their game on the facts and politics of all this. Of course, with the Bush administration that does not necessarily mean they are wrong; it is often just "situation normal...."

Some other voices of note:

George Will says: "[the bill] is a proxy fight over the future of the welfare state, meaning the trajectory of government and the burdens it will place on the economy, which, by its dynamism, must generate the revenues to pay the bills" in full here via Newsweek.

David Brooks calls the program expansion cowardly, dishonest, and an undue burden on those least able to pay here.

My favorite straight-talking pragmatist-conservative, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, is against here.

Even "Farmer's Cousin,” who has been full of insight lately, inveighs against the measure here, describing the bill as a shameless overreach disguised in maudlin rhetoric.

Bottom Line:

We seem determined to have universal care in this country, which gives me great pause. Government healthcare, in a nation that does not do big-government programs very well to begin with, is going to mean a dramatic loss of quality for most of us. Perhaps it would be more Christian for me to sacrifice first-rate care for my family so that other families might have access to merely adequate services--but, frankly, I am inclined to hold out for a better solution.

Having said that, I do so with a sense of uncertainty and more than a modicum of guilt.