It's time to pack it in folks. The Democrats have proven they don't have the political will to actually produce a reasonable bill this year, so I'd rather see health care reform defeated entirely. There's little value to passing a "reform" that fails in include a public option, fails to control prescription costs, and basically gives the store away to the insurance industry.
Blame Harry Reid for this; the Senate blew it from day one. If the Democrats had any balls (that goes for the few women in the Senate as well) they would have told the Republicans to screw themselves and simply passed a good bill for the president to sign. Instead, they have blown a once-in-a-generation chance at meaningful reform in favor of "bipartisanship" and pandering.
Obama hasn't helped. His willingness to cave on every important aspect of reform shows he was never really a progressive-- he's a Clinton centrist at heart --who wants a political victory more than a meaningful solution.
The really sad thing about this is that we had only one chance. The Democrats have pissed it away by pandering to the right, to the Blue Dogs, and to the Republicans because they are afraid of them. What we really need is another LBJ in the Senate, rather than candy-ass Harry Reid, and a president who is willing to expend some political capital to achieve what no others could do.
As people said last fall "elections have consequences." If nothing else, George Bush realized that and acted on it. But in this case, the major consequence for America is that we've lost what was probably the best chance we've ever had at joining the rest of the industrialized world in having a 20th century health care system (there was never any chance of having a 21st century system). It won't come again for a generation. Hopefully by then Reid will have been sent out to pasture and we'll have a president who really means what he says when he's talking to progressives.
-Dr.DRL
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