And the rest of the week's comics, just in case, by some unfortunate circumstance, you missed any:

Vol. 189
Vol. 188
Vol. 187
Vol. 186
Vol. 185
Vol. 184

Happy Sunday. Repent, ye sinners. On second thought, keep sinning.

We have to ask ourselves, who are the winners from requiring us to go through the expense and confusion inherent in trying to implement a law of over 2,000 pages? The answer is clear. It's a health insurance industry that profits from complexity and confusion, and providers of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, devices and services who benefit excessively from the very weak cost controls inherent in our fragmented system of paying for services.

The losers are all the rest of us. The ACA's objective, access to health care for all Americans, could have been accomplished much more easily with far less confusion, expense and complexity.

I talk to a lot of people from across the political spectrum about health care reform. There is a growing consensus that improved Medicare for all is the necessary first step in repairing our badly broken health care system.

During a trip to California last week, I ran into House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. When I explained to her that while I admired her efforts to reform our health care system, I remain an advocate for "Improved Medicare for All," she responded, "Yes, we should have done single payer."

Perhaps there's still hope. Between Harry Reid's recent comments and Pelosi's epiphany, there seems to be a growing understanding of the problem, and its solution, in some parts of Congress.

But first, we will have to get rid of the obstructionist politicians whose only interest seems to be in preserving a health insurance

When your own sister is calling you out, and you are down by huge numbers in the polls, shouldn't you get out of the race now?

In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Liz Cheney reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, telling host Chris Wallace that she disagrees with her younger sister, Mary, a lesbian who married her longtime partner Heather Poe in 2012.

"I love Mary very much. I love her family very much. This is just an issue on which we disagree," Liz Cheney said.

That prompted a swift rebuke from Mary Cheney and Poe, who took to Facebook to voice their disapproval in strikingly personal terms.

"Liz has been a guest in our home, has spent time and shared holidays with our children, and when Mary and I got married in 2012 -- she didn't hesitate to tell us how happy she was for us," wrote Poe. "To have her now say she doesn't support our right to marry is offensive to say the least." Mary Cheney shared Poe's message on the social networking Web site, adding, "Liz -- this isn't just an issue on which we disagree -- you're just wrong -- and on the wrong side of history."

And, Liz Cheney won't call herself a Tea Party candidate

Hmmm....wonder why?  Maybe because "Tea Party" is becoming toxic?

If you've watched the high-profile legislative fights of the last few years and found yourself thinking the two parties in the House of Representatives must represent separate countries, you might not be too far off the mark.

In the Senate, the two-lawmakers-per-state structure creates the moderating possibility of legislators from different parties representing the same set of voters. But the House's single-member districts divide it into a body of two separate countries that do not overlap. That separation is exacerbated by rampant gerrymandering and America's increasingly ideologically ghettoized geography. The result is that when it comes to the U.S. House, John Edwards was right to say there are "two Americas" and Barack Obama was wrong to insist that "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America."

In practice, this means that when trying to pass legislation, Speaker John Boehner and his party's leadership only have to market their ideas to the specific nation that lies within Republicans' 234 districts. It means, in other words, that Republicans are empowered to embrace positions that differ from both House Democrats and America as a whole.

I will say "Very"!

Democrats these days under the leadership of BHO and Pelosi do not actually make the kind of bad deals that they made in the 80s and 90s.

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In his spare time he scours streets and parks in his district, looking for shopping carts homeless use to store and move their belongings. He returns good ones to stores and destroys others with his sledgehammer.

"I find abandoned junk, specifically shopping carts, and I remove them. I also create a situation where those carts can't be pushed around the city. I think it's a good thing," he said.

The executive director of Mental Health America of Hawaii thinks otherwise.

"His message to the public is that it's okay to commit acts of violence against homeless people, against vulnerable people. It's okay for vigilante justice," Marya Grambs said.

The middle class will never support it unless it is paid for by what is seen as fair... meaning "everyone."

tonight I want to apologize for the results of my efforts in reforming US healthcare.  It is now evident from the roll-out and the technical problems that have been exposed that we have created a complex system in which these types of problems will exist, not just at the beginning in the setting up of a website to sell health insurance, but as the law takes full effect.  Therefore, tonight I am announcing my intent to work for a major but simple change in direction.

First, I apologize because these problems should have been evident before we passed the Affordable Care Act.  Prior to the ACA, the existence of the insurance industry created tremendous bureaucracy for consumers, doctors, health providers and hospitals as well as for business and the government. It also resulted in millions of Americans not being able to get the healthcare they needed, even if they had insurance.  After the ACA we now see these problems persist.  This is not surprising.  The ACA requires each state as well as Washington, DC and Puerto Rico to have an exchange to sell health insurance.  Each exchange has four levels of insurance - platinum, gold, silver and bronze.  Within each level there are multiple insurance companies and each insurance company puts forward multiple insurance plans. Each state has its own regulatory system for health insurance and the federal government has thousands of pages of regulations as well.  This is a very complex system not only for the purposes of selling insurance, but will remain complex throughout the system.  Doctors, health providers and hospitals will continue to need to spend more time and money managing payments for healthcare; businesses will continue to need to spend a lot of overhead figuring out what kind of insurance to have and government will have to create bureaucracy to manage thousands of insurance policies.

Second, I want to apologize for stifling the debate we should have had in developing a national healthcare system.  When we began this process we had the opportunity to look at three very distinct systems currently operating in the United States - a market-based system dominated by the insurance industry with healthcare provided for-profit; a single payer system, Medicare, where the government is the only funder of healthcare and private providers deliver healthcare services;  and, a completely government-run healthcare system for Veterans (VA) where the doctors, hospitals and healthcare providers all work for the government.  This would have been a great debate that would have resulted in the United States putting in place the best national health plan based on our experience, and the empirical evidence, of what has worked and what has not, in US healthcare. I suspect if we had that debate the market-based system would have been shown to be the weakest of the three alternatives and a combination of Medicare and the VA would have been the most cost-effective way to provide healthcare for every person in the United States. Obama apology 3

As a former advocate for single payer I knew this, but put aside the empirical evidence. Instead, I allowed those with the most money to decide what kind of healthcare we should have.  Even though single payer had the support of more than 60 percent of Americans, two-thirds of doctors as well as nurses, I ignored the desires of the people and instead worked with the insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and for-profit hospitals.  This was a terrible mistake and a missed opportunity that would have resulted in the United States getting on the path to becoming the most efficient and effective healthcare system in the world; instead we remain the most expensive system that produces mediocre results.

Today, I am announcing the drop two words campaign.  Rather than producing a law of more than one thousand pages and thousands of pages of regulations, I am going to work to drop "over 65" from the Medicare law so that Medicare will serve everyone.  After we pass this law, future administrations can work to make the law better as even the best health systems in the world constantly work to improve themselves.  My hope is that Medicare covers more health services and ends out-of-pocket costs for healthcare, but for now we are merely seeking to drop two words and provide healthcare to all.

The Obamacare web site fiasco can be explained in large part by this:

When HHS in 2011 invited contractors to bid on the chance to build HealthCare.gov, the department's "statement of work" did not include requirements typical of many IT contracts in which interested companies must spell out how the system would perform, according to an industry representative close to the project, who was granted anonymity in order to speak frankly. The agreement that CGI Federal, the company chosen as the main contractor, signed on Sept. 30, 2011, also did not contain specific performance criteria, success measures or response times.

In short, it appears the contractors delivered what was ordered.  It was just that the administration bozos did not have performance requirements!!!!  This is a simply amazing level of incompetence.  But don't worry these clown's are perfectly competent to dictate what your health care plan costs and covers.