This past week saw Ted Kennedy and his Senate Committee on Health (and a zillion other things) issue a paper on how the Massachusetts Senator envisions America’s new health care system. Now, his counterpart over in Senate Finance, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, has joined the fray with his own paper on the subject.

Actually, there’s not much difference in the two, but Baucus reveals some juicy details about how the Obamacrats intend to enforce rationing of health care (which they still won’t admit is on the table, but they cloak it under the concept of “clinical (read: cost) effectiveness”).

In envisioning a Health Fed to run the nation’s doctors and hospitals (modeled after the Federal Reserve in both its overweening power and its so-called political independence), Baucus proposes a $10,000 fine for each instance of “medically improper or unnecessary care.”

Now, about that hip replacement you wanted to get after the age of 60, forget it. It’s unnecessary since you won’t be able to work long enough to justify the expense. (This is actually the policy in Great Britain.)

To paraphrase Al Davis, “Just suffer, baby.”