Health care 'reform' is Obama's Waterloo
December 21, 2009 - 7:51am

* The Rant

By DOUG THOMPSON

President Barack Obama may regret making health care "reform" the benchmark of his Presidency.

If the bastard child of the Senate legislative morass that passed on a 60-40 party line vote becomes law it will stand in history as the benchmark of failure for Obama's over-promised, under-performing, one-term Presidency.

Crafted by lobbyists, gutted by compromise and bloated with pork to win support, the 2,000-pages-plus bill scheduled for a vote on Christmas Eve benefits insurance companies and leaves Americans facing higher heath care costs under a system even worse than the one it is designed to replace.

The bill is a failure of the Obama Presidency, a failure of the lackluster Democratic leadership of Congress and a failure of a legislative and political system that has destroyed any chance of reform or progressive change in Washington.

A smart President would have cut his losses and walked away but Barack Obama does not appear to be smart. His performance as a President is becoming a study in indecision, inability and ineffectiveness.

The man who entered the White House just 11 months ago is a duck out of water, a deer caught in the headlights, an inexperienced political hack in over his head.

But the failure of health care "reform" is not his alone. Democrats caved to the special interests and forgot the original intent of the process: To change the system and provide affordable health care to all Americans.

The bill is legislative diarhhea, a feces-infested mess that resolves nothing, accomplishes even less and makes an already-bad system worse.

Obama says he is proud of the Senate's efforts on the bill.

Polls show a majority of Americans don't share his pride. A majority of Americans no longer buy the Obama sales pitch and they are also fed up with a Congress that is owned and controlled by health care industry.

In its madlog rush towards a bill -- any bill -- the White House and Senate has joined the insurance companies and the health care industry in a violent gang-rape of the American people.

And thanks to the efforts of the rapists, the victims will not be able to afford treatment for their injuries.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/20998