Too complicated

One of the factors that killed the Clinton health care plan was that it was hard to understand, with all that talk about "health care exchanges." And that idea - a purchasing group that individuals could join in order to obtain insurance under group health terms - hasn't gone away.

But what is making it so difficult to understand now, and engendering a certain amount of fear, is not only that the plans under discussion are complex, but that there are too many of them. We have the House plan, two Senate plans, whatever it is that the White House wants, whatever it is that President Obama wants (I'm assuming that people who speak for the White House are speaking for themselves, not for him), and every cockamamie idea that absolutely anyone, in government or out of it, might have floated.

No wonder people believe such bizarre things about "the plan" - no matter how strange an idea is, it's very likely that someone, somewhere, has introduced it

But The New York Times has published a comparison of the major plans being discussed:
.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/12/us/politics/0812-plan-comparison.html#tab=0

Disclaimer: all of this could change at any moment.