Orrin Hatch may not be loving the Democrats’ health care reform plans. Of course, for a moment there, I thought he might be, since he referred to it as being “out of this world.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who has a long history of teaming up with Democrats on healthcare legislation, says Democratic healthcare reform plans now under consideration are “out of this world.”

Hatch also told The Hill in a Friday interview he would be “shocked” if Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) sign onto a healthcare deal with Democrats given the current trajectory of the legislation.

Don’t ask me why, but this has gotten me to thinking about an important distinction which I suspect many of my more left leaning colleagues have overlooked in this entire debate. And that is the not so subtle, but very important distinction between health insurance and health care.

For those not familiar with the industry, insurance is, at the heart of things, little more than an organized crap shoot engaged in by large, well capitalized companies. Each insurance policy is essentially a wager placed between the insurance company and the policy holder. A homeowner’s insurance company will sell policies to a vast number of owners, betting that most of the homes will not burn down, flood or be hit by a meteor. As long as the amount of money paid out to people who do suffer these calamities works out to be less than the total premium payments made by policy holders, the company turns a profit and stays in business.

The same applies to automobile, life and… yes… health insurance policies. When you take out a health insurance policy, the company is essentially betting that you’re going to remain relatively healthy so they won’t have to lay out a lot of money, while you are hedging your bets in case you do run into a catastrophic health situation.

Many of the complaints being raised against the evil insurance companies have to do with pre-existing condition clauses. But let’s think about that for a moment. Getting denied coverage in such a tragic turn of events is certainly awful, and nobody wants it to happen. But if you find out that you have bone cancer, and then go to an insurance company looking for a policy, you are essentially telling them that you just found out you’re going to soon be incurring hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in medical bills, and you would now like to start paying $125 per month and have them pay them all for you. That’s not really a very good “bet” for the company to make, is it?

The point of this admittedly cold-hearted sounding tale is that the wish list of many public option and/or government run health care reform advocates is not a request for “better” or “more fair” health insurance. What they are asking for is to have somebody else pay for their health care if they become seriously ill, regardless of who is paying for all of the expensive technology involved.

If that’s what you want, and you feel that it’s the government’s responsibility to pay for your health care as part of your basic “rights” as a citizen, then fine. Just say so. And then tell us who is going to pay for it, because as the technology continues to advance, such care becomes exponentially more and more expensive. Can the government pay for all of that for everyone? Or just some of us? If some, then who? And where will that money come from?

The bottom line here is that you should really stop trying to call it health “insurance” if this is really what you mean. It’s not insurance if the government is telling the insurance companies who they have to cover, how they structure their policies and what they can charge, regardless of what the actuarial tables say. If you do that, the “bets” are off and it’s become a social program to pay for everyone’s health needs. The same applies if the government effectively puts the entire industry out of business and takes over the whole process. Again… if that’s what you’re really looking for, then fine. But at least be honest enough to admit it. You’re not looking for reform in health insurance. You’re looking for the government to pay everyone’s medical bills. And that won’t be free, so you’re going to have to tell us how it gets paid for.