Once out of the closed door sessions in the House, once out of committee and into public view, Tea Parties and other demonstrations have indicated to the Obama administration that nationalized single payer Obamacare is dead. There are simply not enough Democrat votes in the Congress to pass it in its contemplated form. The Blue Dogs are running scared and the far left has vowed not to vote for anything if the Public Option is taken out. For this reason Obama has scaled back and is now pushing for insurance reform. It is not yet clear what this will entail, but if he signs a bill that removes pre-conditions and allows the market to set the fees, it will be a good first step toward realistic health care reform. And if he also miraculously defies the trial lawyers and gets tort reform, the country will be much the better for it. Tort reform looks like a non-starter for the Democrats, but even minimal insurance reform will be welcome, and Obama can trumpet it as a victory. But Obamacare is dead, possibly for all time, though that’s what Harry Truman thought when he buried the Henry Wallace Stalinist wing in 1948 only to see it rise from the ashes 20 years later in the person of George McGovern and take over the party.

 

 

I’m so relieved, the patient said

I thought they’d given me for dead

But now I see I’m kicking once again

I’m on my feet and feeling fine

I’m pleased to say that me and mine

Are once more in the land of laws not men

We raised ourselves in righteous wrath

We showed our congressmen the math

And said we would not take this lying down

At Tea Parties we let them know

That they no longer run the show

That we won’t sell free lives to DC town

And now Obamacare is done

And he no longer is the One

Who whistles and the pack does what he says

We knocked him down a peg or two

And let him know that you know who

Says take that stuff and stuff it in your fez