Ya Think Totally Blowing Health Care Reform Might Have Anything To Do With It

Is anyone else baffled at the pundits going on and on about how the Democrats are less popular now than, say, just 6 months ago, and they just can't seem to see how that can be the case!? Okay you guys, listen up. Do you think that maybe the reason voters aren't racing to the polls to vote for Democrats may have something to do with the fact that they totally BLEW health care reform. I don't mean they failed to get everything that people wanted. I mean they TOTALLY BLEW it. A descent health care bill would have a combination of the following:

• Public Option
• Funded by a tax increase on the rich, not a tax that only affects average Americans and skips the rich
  
• Strong Insurance Reforms (no preexisting condition garbage and no dropping sick people)

Ideally, health care reform would have led to a single payer plan similar to ANY of the programs run in any of the 36 nations that rank ABOVE the US in health care. This should have been the STARTING point of the Democratic negotiations. Instead, it was a concession made before negotiations even began. You can bet your behind the Republicans didn't start negotiating by making concessions before they even got to the table. They started from a position that any sane person would see was totally unreasonable, then only grudgingly gave up tiny bits of ground from there. In contrast the Democrats were falling all over themselves to please the two or three least obnoxious Republicans, dumping whole programs left and right to do so, only to find out they, the Republicans that were "negotiating" with them, weren't actually negotiating in good faith, but instead had never intended to vote in favor of ANY bill the negotiations would produce. This wouldn't be so bad if the Republicans, had made a secret of that fact. They didn't. They BRAGGED about it to anyone that would listen.
What we (the American people) have gotten so far from the Democrats is excuses, and a Senate plan that apparently was written for them by the health insurance lobby.
Democratic "leadership," look no further than your own complete failure on this deeply important issue when you wonder why you lost popular support in 2010. What kind of rallying cry is, "we can't do what we promise, but the other guys are worse!" It just doesn't inspire.
No amount of whiny excuses will do. You have a majority in both houses. Take the Republicans up on their offer and nuke the filibuster. It's not like it's been a tool the Democrats use more than once in a blue moon. If they did, then Bush wouldn't have gotten EVERY BILL HE WANTED through the Senate with a Republican majority of only two, including a HUGE tax cut for the rich. Whereas the Republicans NEVER STOP using it. Dropping the filibuster altogether would allow the Senate to pass a strong bill similar to the house bill.
The Republicans know this. For the love of Pete, they're bragging about it.