Healthcare Reform Is Dying

It's not looking very good. Healthcare reform is faltering, possibly on the brink of flat-lining. The conservatives and insurers are well on their way to doing it again, helped along by incompetent, spineless Democrats. It was really doomed from the start, when Obama failed to push single-payer as a serious option. Not that I am under any illusions we would have ever ended up with single-payer, but if it at least looked viable then the right wing and the industry would have had to expend their dollars and hatred and energy defeating it and bringing it down to a public option compromise. Now instead, the public option will be compromised, and we will end up with something so anemic and emaciated it won't have been worth it.

Already the insurers have spent close to a million dollars a day lobbying and buying off senators and representatives:

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And now Glenn Beck and the Republican party are succeeding at turning out rabid dogs not just to protest, but to violently protest against reform that would end up benefiting them in the long run (but hey, whoever said people could think for themselves?)

I'm not too hopeful on this one. The recess is only going to make it worse. Every senator and representative is going to be accosted by these Glenn Beck minions at town halls, and every TV station will be flooded with ads from the big lobbies. And then congress will reopen session and the Blue Dogs and the Republicans will defeat meaningful healthcare reform, even if some ghost of a bill gets passed.