Universal health care for all never had a chance under the DINO majority in Congress and the DINO, corporatist president and his DINO administration crew, especially since a corporatist Obama made a deal with the health industry to kill the public option

The Rube Goldberg monstrosity known as the health care bill crawling to the finish line on Sunday will be hailed as a victory for regular Americans.

It is no such thing.   It is simply the quintessential exercise in polishing a turd.

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake explains: "The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year....

"We’ve also taken a detailed look at the bill, and have come up with 18 often stated myths about this health care reform bill.  {These are listed in the article with the accompanying truth.

"Real health care reform is the thing we’ve fought for from the start.  It is desperately needed. But this bill falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps."

Just a few of the eighteen myths:

"Myth: The bill will make health care affordable for middle class Americans. 

"Truth: The bill will impose a financial hardship on middle class Americans who will be forced to buy a product that they can’t afford to use.

"A family of four making $66,370 will be forced to pay $5,243 per year for insurance. After basic necessities, this leaves them with $8,307 in discretionary income — out of which they would have to cover clothing, credit card and other debt, child care and education costs, in addition to $5,882 in annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for which families will be responsible.

"Myth: The bill will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition.

"Truth: Access to the “high risk pool” is limited and the pool is underfunded. It will cover few people, and will run out of money in 2011 or 2012

"Only those who have been uninsured for more than six months will qualify for the high risk pool. Only 0.7% of those without insurance now will get coverage, and the CMS report estimates it will run out of funding by 2011 or 2012.

"Myth: The bill prohibits dropping people in individual plans from coverage when they get sick.

"Truth: The bill does not empower a regulatory body to keep people from being dropped when they’re sick.

"There are already many states that have laws on the books prohibiting people from being dropped when they’re sick, but without an enforcement mechanism, there is little to hold the insurance companies in check."

Regarding this appalling bill, David Sirota asks, "What's the matter with Democrats? 

"Ever since Thomas Frank published his book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Democrats have sought a political strategy to match the GOP's. The health care bill proves they've found one.

"Whereas Frank highlighted Republicans' sleight-of-hand success portraying millionaire tax cuts as gifts to the working class, Democrats are now preposterously selling giveaways to insurance and pharmaceutical executives as a middle-class agenda. Same formula, same fat cat beneficiaries, same bleating sheeple herded to the slaughterhouse. The only difference is the Rube Goldberg contraption that Democrats are using to tend the flock.

"...President Obama then barnstorms the country, calling the bill a victory for "ordinary working folks" over the same corporations he is privately promising to enrich. The insurance industry, of course, airs token ads to buttress Obama's "victory" charade - at the same time its lobbyists are, according to Politico, celebrating with chants of "we win!"

"If this represents victory over special interests, why is Politico reporting that 'drug industry lobbyists have huddled with Democratic staffers' to help pass the bill? How is the legislation a first step to reform, as proponents argue, if it financially and politically strengthens insurance and drug companies opposing true change? And what prevents those companies from continuing to increase prices?

"These queries go unaddressed - and often unasked. Why? Because their answers threaten to expose the robbery in progress, circumvent the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" contemplation and raise the most uncomfortable question of all:

"What's the matter with Democrats?"

While the DINO president makes deals to enrich the health care industry, and the White House and Capitol Hill are filled with those enjoying top quality health care coverage provided by the government, courtesy of taxpayers, many of whom can't afford health care coverage for themselves and still won't under this bill which is a great fraud perpetrated against economically struggling Americans.

Compared to the universal health care of other industrialized nations, this bill is a pathetically sick joke played on regular Americans by the Congress and the White House.