So I'm talking to a Republican tonight about health care reform. He tells me that we have the best health care in the world. He tells me "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

As some here know, I used to work as a mechanic at a glove factory. At the factory, when you needed a new part for your machine, you walked to the parts room, entered you employee ID, and signed out the part you needed. Across the PC screen was the mantra: "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It."

Now, this did not mean that we mechanics should shy away from fixing the machine? No. It meant that we should stretch springs and sharpen cutters and bend pressure plates before we replaced them.

Any mechanic worth his salt, and I was pretty damn good, could stretch a defective part for hours, if not days. As long as it kept spitting out good gloves, all was well. And even if sub par gloves came out, the company sold them at a lower price.

This is, in my opinion, what the health care debate has boiled down to. Just keep the machine running as cheaply as possible. Doesn't matter that the stretched spring will break during the next shift, so long as it keeps spitting out gloves until our shift is over.

So yeah, we can pass a health care bill without a public option. And yeah, it may save us a few bucks in the short term. But I can promise you that the stretched spring will eventually break, that the knife will eventually dull, and both will need replacement.

It is now up to Congress and Obama to decide whether they want to replace the faulty part now or pass it on to others who may wish to run the machine to exhaustion. I say let's spend the money now and look toward the future. Otherwise, like the machines I once fixed, our system will be sold for scrap metal.