Somewhere a health insurance executive is laughing.

Sitting behind his vast teak desk, lighting a Cuban cigar, he is laughing as he watches television images of frightened citizens screaming in fear at their congressional representatives. They are shouting in rage and panic about the “death panel” provision in proposed health care legislation -- a provision that does not exist.

The insurance executive is laughing because the plan hatched to destroy health care legislation by him and his associates is working to perfection. All he and his multi-millionaire brethren had to do was pay savvy public relations firms to create ads and hold public forums in which outrageous lies were disseminated about the proposed legislation.

Chuckling, he reflects on how easy it is to fool people -- they are so gullible, so easy to manipulate. As he watches them bleat in fear, he feels amusement, contempt, and a deep satisfaction in knowing that their panic will make him even more wealthy than he already is. He is bothered not a whit that this disinformation campaign has cost tens of millions of dollars. Instead, he feels the glow of a job well done, knowing that the campaign will ensure the health insurance industry of billions of dollars of profit to come.

Puffing on his cigar, grinning from ear to ear, he takes a few extra moments to savor the beautiful irony of the death panel issue. It has tickled him no end because he knows that if any death panels actually exist in the US, they have been created by the insurance industry itself.

Of course, the health insurance industry doesn’t call them death panels. No, they call them “HMOs” and “managed care,” and their purpose is to deny benefits to the sick and the elderly whenever possible, even if the patient’s claim is valid, even if it means the patient will die.

The executive has overseen the health insurance industry “death panel” guidelines. He knows how much money they have saved his company, and he feels the sublime contentment of a plan executed to perfection.

Now, the very people that his policies are designed to exploit are blindly trying to destroy a plan that would provide them with better health care. Perfect, he thinks, just perfect.

The insurance executive realizes that his celebration is not quite complete. Retreating to his collection of vintage wines, he returns with a bottle of 1982 Bordeaux Red Lafite-Rothschild, lovingly purchased at the discount price of $35,000. He carefully opens the bottle, decants it, and pours a glass. Turning back to the television, he looks at a frightened man shaking his fist and saying that he won’t stand for the government killing his grandmother. Raising his glass toward the screen, the insurance executive grins and offers a toast,