I Didn't Know God Made Honky-Tonk Angels:

Wow.
The Obama administration said Friday that it would charge insurance companies for the privilege of selling health insurance to millions of Americans in new online markets run by the federal government.

The cost of these “user fees” can be passed on to consumers.
Those federal exchanges aren't even legal, and already they're talking about you paying for the privilege of using them -- and by you, I mean you, because the cost can be passed right on to the consumer.  It's like a tax, for an illegal service that the government commands you to accept.

5 comments:

MikeD said...

Grim,

I need to know where you got the title of this post from.

Grim said...

It's a line from an old song. There are two versions of it:

"I didn't know God made Honky Tonk angels; I should have known you'd never make a wife. You gave up the only one who ever loved you; and went back to the wild side of life."

The other version is sung by a woman, and substitutes "take a wife" for "make a wife."

Grim said...

If the question is "Why did you think this was an appropriate title?", the answer has to do with the bait-and-switch aspect. Passed a law allegedly going to make insurance cheaper? Prices are going up. Passed a law that allows for state exchanges and not Federal exchanges? We'll just set up Federal ones anyway. Passed a law that was allegedly going to drop administrative costs? Now we have user fees in addition to the very same administrative costs, passed right on to you!

It strikes me as similar to the proverbial 'Honky Tonk angel,' presenting him or herself as a good and worthy person, but then stealing away back to the saloon and breaking the heart of the man or woman who had believed in them.

MikeD said...

Ok, you see, I have some friends from Macon who have a punkabilly bank called the Liabilities. In one of their songs this line is used and I wasn't sure it it was a callback to an older song or what. In any event, their stuff can be found here:
http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/1770101-the-liabilities

You can listen to samples at that site.

Grim said...

Oh, yeah, it's a very famous line. The original song is called "The Wild Side of Life," and in addition to the female version of it, a woman wrote an outright rebuttal called "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels." David Allen Coe includes lines from it, including the one you're asking about, in "If That Ain't Country," and I'm sure it's turned up elsewhere too.