(Non-political blogging alert!!) In terms of fantasies that have no basis in reality, yet have been believed by zillions of living breathing, human beings, Santa Claus is on a par with little else besides Iraqi WMDs, the idea that your government would never wiretap you without a warrant, and the notion that our last President did not have sexual relations with that woman (well, okay, so nobody ever really believed that last one…).

So it's the eternal parental dilemma: what do you say to your kid? Do you insist something really is true that clearly isn't? Does that set a precedent? What about kids of different ages? Do you insist your older kids play along? How and when do you decide to break the news?

And for the religious set, how does this fit into to the sacred Christmas picture? Did Jesus die for our sins, but was born for a magic man to bring presents? Could Santa have been one of the wise men? How did those wise men get there, anyway? Did anybody get a good look at that nativity star? Maybe there was a team of antlered mammals pulling it. Santa does look an awful lot like God, y'know. Old white WASPy guy with a beard. He doesn't seem quite so severe, but the real St. Nicholas was. Punched a guy out in an ecumenical council because he decided the guy was being heretical. A Huckabee voter, maybe?

But I digress. In our house, we had it easy with the first kid, who is now 8. He always insisted on the facts. Cold hard reality. He was never confident that he was really getting that, so the whole Santa thing really smelled fishy to him. His little brother, though (who is nearly 4), really grooves on that stuff, but we've avoided making it too serious a thing.

I just cant see engaging in such a charade with my kid, I'll admit. The other day when he asked if Santa was bringing presents, we told him “no, Santa's just a really nice story, like Spongebob. All your presents come from your family and friends.”

He seemed okay with that. What do you folks do? What do you non-parents think? Have I crushed my child's spirit, emotionally hobbling him forever (yeah, right)? 

This is less of a diary and more of a question.

With Bush’s recent complaints of pork spending, I’m wondering if anyone has compared the 6 years of Republican pork spending against the last year of Democratic pork spending.

Does anyone have some data on this?

I'm not an expert on health policy. There's just too much to pay attention to, and I've pretty much decided to let lots of other people handle that.

 Still, every so often something breaks into even my consciousness that seems to be meaningful, and this week it was the front-page story at the Freeps. The headline, Paying but not completely covered, encapsulates the thesis of the story: the preexisting condition exclusion in Catamount Health screws people out of needed health care, including the very attractive pregnant couple on the cover and people who need some very expensive HIV/AIDS treatment. They sure have a point. The people featured in the article make a persuasive point that if they could have known that they wouldn't be covered there would have been no good reason for them to sign up and start paying premiums. 

 I think this is a great illustration of a big problem with this program, and it does seem like something that can be fixed when the Legislature returns next month.

Still, this may be a case where the Free Press didn't just bury the lede, they completely didn't see it.   

At the bottom of the story there is a text box with a bunch of statistics in it.         

The problem is, I think they left out the most important statistic.

Here are the latest enrollment figures:
APPLICATIONS: 1,837 people have applied for one of the Catamount plans offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont and MVP Health Care.
APPROVED AT FULL COST: 150 Vermonters have been approved for coverage paying the full monthly premium — $393 for an individual.
APPROVED WITH SUBSIDY: 1,251 Vermonters have been approved for coverage paying a partial premium, depending on their income, with state and federal dollars making up the difference. The minimum monthly payment is $60 for an individual.
PENDING: 335 applications under review.
DENIED: 86 didn't qualify.
DECLINED: 14 decided against enrolling after seeing the cost.
ENROLLED WITH EMPLOYERS: 349 Vermonters were added to their employers' health plans, with the state paying a share of their premiums. For uninsured people who work where insurance is offered, this option is checked first before they can apply for Catamount.

It's so dense with figures that you don't immediately get it, so let me pull something out:  

APPROVED AT FULL COST: 150 Vermonters have been approved for coverage paying the full monthly premium . . .
APPROVED WITH SUBSIDY: 1,251 Vermonters have been approved for coverage paying a partial premium . . . 

If you add those two figures together you get 1,401 Vermonters getting coverage through this program, with maybe another 349 getting it through their job.

By digging around on the Web you can find another important number: the number of Vermonters without health coverage. It's 65,416. This isn't even a dent in the problem. At this rate, how long will it take to cover everybody who needs coverage, even assuming they don't drop out when they can't afford the premium or don't want to pay for a plan that doesn't provide the services they need?

 Maybe you don't think this is a joke, but how much of the $387,000 that they're paying to advertise the program will they have to spend to counteract stories that publicize what a rotten deal it is?