A line Ollie frequently spoke to Stan in Laurel and Hardy movies nearly a century ago was, “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”

Amid the headlong rush to end health care as we know it, let’s revisit how today’s alignment came to be.

From Washington the implication is that government is being forced to step up, to ride to the rescue of a dysfunctional private system.

Well, OK, but who made the mess?

The answer, like it or not, is Washington.

Washington also has the potential to provide the cure, but folks will keep niddling and tweaking, making the mess messier. They lack the intestinal fortitude to close the loop, to finish the job.

It was back in Laurel and Hardy days when politicians first decided that doctors and hospitals could use a bit of governing.

Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. Write to him at Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182, or e-mail.

Early involvement gave way to more ambitious programs, specifically Medicare and Medicaid, both born 45 years ago.

Both big programs are entitlements. That’s a description, not a dirty word. For Medicare, for which there is a separate tax stream, the trigger is having a 65th birthday. After that, the federal treasury pays most medical costs. Not all, but most. For Medicaid, there are income thresholds. People who make less have their medical expenses paid for by a combination of state and federal funds.

In Mississippi today, one in five people are Medicaid clients and one in eight are Medicare-eligible.

As entitlements, funding for the two largest government programs is open-ended. It’s like telling your kid, “I’ll buy you a car.” If the kid comes home with a Chevy subcompact, you pay. If the kid comes home with a Maserati, you pay.

We haven’t heard much about this, but trying to get Medicaid and Medicare spending under some type of control — to at least have some predictability — is a major subtext of what’s been going on in Washington. Most of the rhetoric is about “helping people,” but among themselves lawmakers know the bigger challenge is to control costs.

And something else: Private health insurance companies make a lot of money, perhaps too much, but part of the reason is that private patients subsidize Medicare and Medicaid. Governments set what they pay to providers. Insurance companies can negotiate, but almost always pay more for the same services. It’s like a store charging a few cents more for a pack of gum because the owner knows a few packs will be shoplifted.

The way out of the mess is not to talk about reverting to the halcyon days of old. That’s where opponents have it wrong. Government isn’t exiting the health care arena now or at any time in the future.

If the consensus is — and it appears to be — that everyone in America is as equally entitled to health care services as the poor and senior citizens, then let the government’s role be as a conduit for payment. Legislation could be similar to Mississippi’s Adequate Education Plan, where a basic level of funding is promised. People who wanted it or could afford it could buy additional policies on the private market.

Along with putting an end to pretending government is going to get out of the health care business, let’s stop pretending it is free.

How about a 5 percent across-the-board tax on all personal income? No exemptions. Such a tax would raise enough cash to cover all health care spending, public and private, in America today.

In turn, have the government parse out the money raised by the 5 percent tax — and not a penny more — based on budgets provided by existing and new health care providers, including pharmacies, clinics, nursing homes. The tax would generate about $8,000 per person per year, which matches today’s level of health care spending.

The biggest down side is that such an approach would greatly reduce the private health insurance industry and the thousands upon thousands of jobs the industry provides.

Most Mississippians are conservative. Small government is their mantra. But it’s as nutty to play woulda, coulda, shoulda with health care as it is to take the view that cradle-to-grave health services can be provided under an entitlement system.

What Congress proposes is another layer of hodgepodge. Look for more frustration, more confusion, more duplication, more gaps and a bigger-than-ever bureaucracy sucking out resources that should go to patient care.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Let government collect and pay for basic services. Let private interests handle the rest.

We’re in a mess. Congress created it and is poised to make things worse, not better.