In a recent post over at AmericaBlog that asked readers to offer their opinions on how Obama is handling health care, I offered this point-of-view:
I sum it up as follows: We wanted a leader and we ended up with an idealist. The thing that bothers me is that the Obama administration has become SO hung up on this idea that the legislation has to be bipartisan that he’ll let the Republicans tear it to shreds as long as he can say it was a bipartisan bill.
Well, it looks like the terrorists have won, as today, we hear this:
As to the fate of a government option plan to compete with private insurance, [Obama senior advisor David] Axelrod suggested the controversial concept is gone but not forgotten: "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice. "
So we pretty much know the public option, the only real chance that a non-single payer system really ever had in making costs come down without sacrificing care is dead. If it’s not, this is the greatest rope-a-dope ever, but I doubt this. I think what’s really happening is that our Idealist-in-Chief has decided that in order to craft his “bipartisan” legislation (that all the Republicans will vote against anyway, lest they anger St. Rush), he’s scrapping the real reform out of the bill, and the crap we’re left with will be marketed as a real win for the rest of us. Except that, as usual, the only winners here will be the insurance companies and the politicians whose pockets they line.
I guess I’m just a bit sad about this because I stupidly bought into the idea that Obama was going to be a different kind of president. Someone who was going to stand up and fight for things and really deliver the change he campaigned on. While there is still time for him to change all of this, it’s looking more and more like instead of an advocate of real change, we’ve gotten an idealist who has decided his legacy needs to be bringing “bipartisanship” back to Washington, even if it means sacrificing his ideals.
Is it any wonder the Republicans are laughing all of the way back to the ballot box? In January, it seemed like they were a party lost in the wilderness for years to come. Now they look like they could conceivably retake at least one house of Congress next year. Therefore, let’s face the facts: unless things change dramatically, we’re boned.
Will Democrats ever learn?
