Well, it’s Christmas Eve, have you figured out how to fix America’s health care system yet? If you haven’t, skip the family dinner and make it your top priority. Scrooge Daschle wants to drop socialized medicine down your chimney tonight wrapped in a bright red bow.

Think I’m kidding? President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services has given the country two weeks, including Christmas Day, to provide input on how to improve health care in America.

As if Americans didn’t already have enough on their to-do lists this holiday season, they’re also expected to host a “health care community discussion.” The deadline is Dec. 31.

Worried that you won’t have the time? Don’t be. Obama and Daschle, under the guise of “transparency,” have created easy-to-use guides for moderators and participants to engage in these discussions. They’ve even gone to the trouble of directing you to liberal solutions.

My Heritage Foundation colleague Conn Carroll calls this “a cynical ploy to add a participatory varnish to a carefully choreographed plan to remake the nation’s $2 trillion health care as quickly as possible.”

In the participant’s guide, for instance, only Obama’s preferred framework for health care reform is presented. Now, if you’re a participant who has only a passing knowledge of health care, aren’t you more likely to agree with Obama’s framework if you’re offered no opposing viewpoints? This is what passes for openness. It’s a sham.

What’s worse is that Obama and Daschle are using this exercise to prime Americans to have a slanted viewpoint on such things as a national health insurance exchange that would destroy private coverage, expansions of Medicaid and SCHIP, and increased spending on the public health infrastructure.

I don’t mean to dampen the Christmas spirit, but as Obama enjoys his never-ending honeymoon this holiday season, Daschle is already started pushing America down the path of socialized medicine.