My first reaction to this story about McDonald’s potentially dropping its health insurance coverage for employees was to ask myself, “McDonald’s offers health coverage to employees?” The answer is yes. They offer really bad health coverage.

In addition to having to fend off the slow chipping away of the health care law by the GOP, especially if they gain power over one or both houses of Congress, Democrats have to deal with the foxes they left in the henhouse, who are systematically working to preserve their own profits at the expense of consumers.

At the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) conference yesterday, regulators approved the medical loss ratio “blank” — the form that will get sent to health insurers to determine how much of their premium revenue gets spent on medical care. And in an unexpected early victory, the NAIC rejected many of the procedures that the insurance industry wanted to include as counting under the MLR.

During the health care debate, one of the biggest question marks that I had was whether the insurance regulations, which would be handled by the states and not a federal regulator, would be enforceable. Countless examples of insurance companies getting off scot-free, or of state insurance commissioners lacking the will or the resources to stop them, raised my concern. Now, Robert Pear and Kevin Sack at the New York Times add to that concern by discovering that some state insurance commissioners don’t even have the authority to uphold the regulations in the Affordable Care Act.

I was able to ask Franken about this in a one-on-one interview at Netroots Nation. He said this was an example of the need to stay vigilant in the implementation process on bills of this nature. “I mean, I like to call what we passed ‘The Health and Human Services Secretary Shall … Act of 2010,’” Franken said, pointing to all the parts of the bill that need to be clarified by that federal agency. However, Franken seemed confident that pressure on the insurers would aid in reducing the amount of reclassification in the system. “It’s not like the medical loss ratio hasn’t been computed before,” Franken said. “I have full confidence that Kathleen Sebelius can get this right.”

The insurance industry is already looking for ways to game this requirement.

I wish for the day when legislation is written by our legislators and not by some unelected accountant. Because Senator Harry Reid wanted to make the CBO score look prettier he will allow insurance companies to waste an extra 10% of your premiums on not providing health care. All hail the almighty CBO.

After last night’s epic cave-in on the Lieberman health care bill, here’s a big-picture view of where we’re at right now.

My next step will be world domination.