Shhhh. Grab your nap mats. I’ll dim the lights. You don’t want to rouse the 800-pound gorilla known as the healthcare industry snoozing in the corner.

So far, the government has gamely sidestepped and moonwalked around the low-hanging fruit to focus instead on less ripe-for-renewal industries like the automobile, banking and finance clubs. What’s hard to fathom is the logic behind the Chicken Little cries that these industries needed to be rescued the way they were so the American economy wouldn’t collapse while the healthcare industry, which represents a significant percentage of the national gross domestic product, is enabled to plod forward through the mire of quicksand-worthy debate.

After blustering in typical political theater fashion that banks, car companies and finance companies mismanaged their assets through bad loans, unwanted products, corporate gluttony, greed, malfeasance, negligence and waste, the government inserted itself into heretofore free-market public and private enterprises and began calling the shots. It borrowed billions from taxpayers to funnel into these operations, removed executives deemed blameworthy and set up bureaucratic plans to micromanage these industries from now on.

While these government-saved industries are far from fixed, healthcare seemingly remains broken and in need of dire repair, suffering from some of the same maladies that befell their economic brethren.

Politicians clamor for universal access without really understanding what that means and how the healthcare system really works as the media dutifully toe the line and rally (and rile) an ill-informed public with only fractions of the data and an incomplete understanding.

Amid town-hall meetings, endless Capitol Hill droning and quickly fading promises of hope and change that are losing their luster in a public relations- and celebrity-driven society, the government spits out ideas like taxing health benefits or reducing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to stanch the blood.

Imagine if the government chose to increase the taxes for purchasing a gas-guzzling SUV or luxury sedan or sports car to encourage you to invest instead in small, vanilla, boxey autopods? Or what about raising taxes on those seeking mortgages to flip houses for a profit? Or for dabbling in high-risk derivatives?

So as government officials toss around $1 trillion in Monopoly money savings targets, where are the plans to crack down on administrative inefficiencies and wasteful processes? Where are the hospital system and private insurance company CEO ousters, in favor of budget-minded, government-friendly replacements?

What about forcing doctors and healthcare organizations to use information technology, regardless of cost, or banning any physician relationships with manufacturers, or mandating which products to use on patients in efforts to control costs? What about rooting out fraud and abuse among providers, suppliers and payers, re-investing levied fines back into the healthcare coffers? After all, taxing employers and citizens and restraining government program reimbursement only represents and addresses about half the problem.

Absurd, isn’t it?

A debt-laden government bred from self-centered, wasteful spending tactics, courtesy of appointed and elected officials is going to instruct and monitor private industries (that admittedly benefit from public funding, too) on how to manage their finances and hopefully return to solid profitability.

Don’t feel bad if visions of the mouse scurrying in the exercise wheel pop into your head.

To date, government efforts to reform healthcare seem to resemble the silent films of the 1930s – plenty of action and mouths moving but no discernable sound or even sound policies.

Naturally, none of this high-degree of interference and meddling should occur beyond standard regulatory scrutiny. In any industry. That doesn’t mean the government should look away, bury its head in the sand, or even engage in vapid rhetoric. The justification "at least we’re making an effort with all the wheel-spinning," however, is no substitute for achievement and progress.

Whether you’re referring to child-rearing, body-toning, business-running, budget-managing, expense-reducing or service-providing functionality, healthy living and operating requires individual and personal discipline, and self control and selfless contribution, fortified by wisdom, discretion and common sense.

No amount of behavioral rationalization and truth aversion can supplant the idea that kindergarten is more valuable than the zoo.