ObamaCare In Critical Condition

Wednesday night's address by President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress was a bold attempt to take back health care reform from the rabble-rousers who have been dominating the converastion until now.

Most of the speech wasn't anything you haven't heard already about Obama's plans to make health care more affordable--a government-run, nonprofit option for those who don't have coverage, those who can afford coverage would be required to buy a policy, and those who like their coverage can keep it. He just hasn't articulated them very well before Wednesday.

But there were two things that deserved attention. First, Obama said that it should be illegal for insurance companies to drop your coverage if you have a pre-existing condition. This is why people go into debt when they get sick.

Second, illegal immigrants would not be insured under the President's plan. That one prompted Joe Wilson, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, to shout that Obama was a "liar".

If you want to know why the Republican Party has devolved into the Bleacher Bums (with apologies to real Bleacher Bums), pouting like spoiled brats and crudely heckling this President every chance they get, look no further than Wilson (who has since apologized).

As for the Democrats, divided as they are, they interrupted the President's speech several times to stand up and applaud. It may be a time-honored tradition, but it looks phony and bogs things down for people watching on TV. So knock it off.

Passage of any kind of health care bill is up in the air right now. The GOP will nix anything that doesn't protect Big Medicine. Moderate Democrats won't support the so-called public option, while progressives will balk if it's taken off the table. The Era of Good Feeling this is not.

What President Obama said in the first part of his address might become a self-fulfilling prophecy: "I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I'm determined to be the last". If health care reform does not pass Congress anytime soon, no future president will want to take it up again.