cash for clunkers --> health care for clunkers?

A great point from Michael Barone in his essay at Real Clear Politics (hat tip: Dennis Prager)...

If the Feds cannot run a simple, inexpensive bureaucracy such as "cash for clunkers", how can anyone (except the insane, morons, or statists) believe that the federal government will effectively run more health care?

Mind you, the government hasn't yet shelled out the $1 billion authorized for Cash for Clunkers. Dealers reduce the buyers' prices and have to apply to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the rebates and NHTSA -- surprise, surprise -- has only managed to process 23,000 of an estimated 250,000 applications. The checks, we are told, will be in the mail....

Cash for Clunkers is a prime example of the unanticipated consequences of hastily drafted legislation....

If such simple laws can have such huge unanticipated consequences, what should we expect from the 1,000-plus-page laws congressional Democrats have been trying to write that would regulate the provision and financing of health care, one-sixth of our total economy?

Ballooning costs, for one thing. Not many members of Congress -- maybe not any -- have had the time or motivation to read through 1,000-page bills to figure out how someone could game the system to bring in great gushers of government money. But some nontrivial number of 307,000,000 Americans will do so. And some will figure out how to tap the federal treasury to their advantage.