My two favorite football teams are Arkansas and whoever beats LSU.

Last weekend, I watched LSU go toe-to-toe with Ole Miss. By now, you’ve probably seen the same outrageous replays from the game: With only 1 second left, LSU tried to down the ball instead of kicking a field goal. For that matter, they could have even tried passing or running the ball, but instead they just seemed to spike it, practically handing Ole Miss a 25-23 victory.

One of the critical mistakes LSU made was letting the clock run for a full 17 seconds before calling timeout after the third-down. If they had called timeout sooner, they might have had more time to formulate a plan—or at least get their field goal team ready for the final play. As it was, however, they made a lot of mistakes and failed to get their act together.

Right now, it feels like Congress is doing the same thing. They’re lined up to throw long-range passes when a simple field goal will do the trick.

If Congress really wants to make health care more affordable, all they need to do is begin with some basic tort-reform to protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits. After that, they can increase competition among insurance companies by letting them compete across state-lines—giving patients more options when it comes to where they buy their health insurance and what they pay for it.

Those two steps would be a great start toward sensible health care reform. Instead, our senators and representatives are running plays that just don’t make any sense, holding votes late in the evening on weekends, ringing up hundreds of millions dollars in debt and new taxes, recommending far-reaching legislation that will place heavy restrictions on virtually every American, and refusing to call timeout to reassess their thinking. Meanwhile, the rest of us are staring at our TVs in disbelief, screaming, “What are you thinking?”

Rep. Marion Berry admitted that the health care bill he voted for in the House was flawed, but stated that he felt the need to vote for it anyway; Sens. Lincoln and Pryor voted last weekend to debate a health care bill that they’ve both expressed concerns about. They seem hopeful that the bill will be amended to be more palatable, but what if it isn’t? Why risk passage of a bad bill by bringing it up for debate? It just doesn’t make sense.

Ole Miss might be my second favorite football team this week, but Congress is still dead last, in my book.

(For a full list of health care reform Dos and Don’ts, click here)