During the uproar over passage of the healthcare bill, Nancy Pelosi famously said, "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." She must be proud of the statement, because it's still on the official US House of Representatives website.

Oh the goodies that have just begun to pour out of that cornucopia. Employees of the state of Arizonaall 135,000 of them, just learned that their healthcare premiums will go up by as much as 37% next year, an increase to be borne almost entirely by those with children. Oh, the children! What are we going to do? Where are the Democrats to save us from this, this mean-spiritedness of Obamacare?

Now we learn, "away from the fog of the controversy," that the bill requires that all purchases of gold be reported to the federal government. The pretense that this is about collecting taxes to "pay" for Obamacare is obscene. Assume that the administration's estimate of $1.7 billion collected per year is accurate (probably wildly inflated). That for a program that will run $1,000 billion or more in the red per year? Laughable. No, it's about control. How long till this admirer of FDR will decree that everyone surrender their gold to the government, at a price set by the government, for paper dollars or face prison time? Worked for Roosevelt, why not for the latest Democrat?

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d@gmail.com.