Today's Quinnipiac poll says it more clearly than I ever could - the special interests and their hold over the US Senate has taken a bill the people wanted and twisted it into something they don't (boldy mine):
As the Senate prepares to vote on health care reform, American voters "mostly disapprove" of the plan 53 - 36 percent and disapprove 56 - 38 percent of President Barack Obama's handling of the health care issue, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Now for the part that will make you want to bang your head against the wall repeatedly:
While voters oppose the health care plan, they back two options cut from the Senate bill, supporting 56 - 38 percent giving people the option of coverage by a government health insurance plan and backing 64 - 30 percent allowing younger people to buy into Medicare.
Oh, and the Medicare buy-in? It had 50% support among self-identified Republicans.
The US Senate: experts at representing the people entrenched special interests.
The most disturbing thing about the outcome of this year-long look at our health care system (three years, really if you count the campaigns), is that, despite a patent crisis, huge public will, and tremendous majorities in the party that purportedly represents the average Joe or Jane more than the other, entrenched special interests won the day.
(Yes, thousands of lives will be saved by this outcome by shoveling money at the problem. And I suspect that before it gets signed by the president, aspects of some of the regulations will get tighter and better. The House may even have a surprise or two that actually results in meaningful reform.)
This episode should raise serious questions in the minds of Americans as to whether our government is capable of representing its citizens in a meaningful way without crippling interference from special interests, their lobbying efforts, their co-opting of a political party entirely, another in part, and, finally, their media enablers.
The fundamental message of candidate Barack Obama's campaign was that change was only possible by leaving aside the status quo, which is a pretty way of saying "taking on entrenched special interests".
But they weren't taken on. As Ambinder correctly notes, this was an approach of interests rather than values.
The most important question for me now is: Did we take them on and lose, or did we not try to take them on? The former is disturbing; the latter?
(Since the topic's a bit bigger than the Granite State, this was crossposted here from two separate pieces over at my home in Blue Hampshire.)