Democratic members of Congress, party strategists, and even President Obama have tried their best to portray Republicans as obstructionists to health care reform, and want us to believe that if the effort fails, it's all because of the GOP.

That's bull. The failure to pass health care reform would be a yoke around the Democrats' neck, and the cause of losing the moment would be their inability to achieve unity among themselves.

Democrats have the perfect political hat trick. They control the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, with a strong majority in both houses.

But I'm reminded of something Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, told me nine years ago: Democrats know nothing about party unity.

Conyers was being interviewed for an election special I was working on for a now-defunct black cable network, and he said that if Democrats had a majority of the votes in the House, they had a unified group of only about 165.

That's because when you throw in the 50-something Blue Dog Democrats -- strongly conservative members whom some party loyalists liken to Republicans in Democrat clothing -- then you have a different kind of dynamic than you do in the GOP, where the strong base of conservatives typically stays in line.

Then, of course, you have the far-left members, loud and noisy, and oftentimes unwilling to compromise their positions in order to move legislation forward.

When you put the far left and the far right of the Democratic Party in one room, you will see fireworks that rival a Democratic-Republican fight.

And that's exactly what we are seeing on health care reform.

All summer, the conversation has been dominated by the White House trying to placate conservative Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats on the various health care bills that the House and Senate are considering.

Both groups are adamantly opposed to growing the federal government, and with a rising deficit, the last thing they want is another $1 trillion program. (Although most didn't mind the $1 trillion we spent on the useless war in Iraq -- but I digress.)

Obama administration officials thought they had the liberal and progressive wing of the party in their pockets and set their sights on satisfying conservatives in both parties.

But over the weekend, Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius totally botched the deal by giving the impression that the public option wasn't a major goal. That sent the progressives/liberals nuts, and now the White House is trying to put the genie back into the bottle.

The progressive/liberals are angry because they believe they have given up way too much in this health care bill, with nothing to show for it in terms of Republican and Blue Dog Democrat support.

Yet what no one wants to mention is that many of them are still seething over having to accept massive cuts in the stimulus bill by Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in order for that to pass. Obama implored them to support the changed bill for the good of the country, and they bit their lip and sucked it up.

That day is over.

In many ways, the Democratic Party is too democratic. It includes so many special interests that it's hard to achieve major consensus without having to satisfy everyone. Republicans? They have a simpler base and have always found it easy to drive an agenda.

President Obama is desperate to toe the line on achieving bipartisanship with this health bill. He wants as many Republican votes as he can get, but he's not making considerable headway in that area. Maybe he has a shot at upwards of 10 votes in the Senate, but you can forget the House.

Now, because of the public option mess, he is going to have to shore up his progressive/liberal base. But those people are now emboldened and unwilling to cede more ground.

So the time the president wanted to spend on wooing conservatives will have to be spent on keeping his angry progressive/liberal wing intact.

Democrats have floated the idea of going it alone and passing health care reform. Some have said the president will pay a big price among independent voters if he does that.

Well, tough.

If health care was his first priority to getting elected, that should remain the case. Damn the 2010 midterm elections, and damn the 2012 presidential elections.

Congress has been trying for more than six decades to achieve health care reform, and the Democrats have all the stars lined up to do so. Of course, even with their large majority, it won't be a cakewalk getting a bill passed in the Senate.

If it doesn't happen now, I don't want to hear any carping from the left. Your own party had a shot and screwed it up. Democrats, you will have no one to blame but yourselves. It's now or never. So stop whining about the Republicans and get your own house in order.

WASHINGTON—After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.

"Both parties understand that the current system is broken," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. "But what we can't seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue."

"Ultimately, though, it's our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve," Pelosi added.

The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.

"We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. "If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there's no reason we can't work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population."

"That's what America is all about," he added.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said on Meet The Press that Republicans would never agree to a plan that doesn't allow citizens the choice to be denied medical care in the private sector.

"Americans don't need some government official telling them they don't have the proper coverage to receive treatment," Boehner said. "What they need is massive insurance companies to become even more rich and powerful by withholding from average citizens the care they so desperately require. We're talking about people's health and the obscene profits associated with that, after all."

Though there remain irreconcilable points, both parties have reached some common ground in recent weeks. Senate leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) point to Congress' failure to pass legislation before a July 31 deadline as proof of just how serious lawmakers are about stringing along the American people and never actually reforming the health care industry in any meaningful way.

"People should know that every day we are working without their best interests in mind," Reid said. "But the goal here is not to push through some watered-down bill that only denies health care to a few Americans here and a few Americans there. The goal is to recognize that all Americans have a God-given right to proper medical attention and then make sure there's no chance in hell that ever happens."

"No matter what we come up with," Reid continued, "rest assured that millions of citizens will remain dangerously uninsured, and the inflated health care industry will continue to bankrupt the country for decades."

Other lawmakers stressed that, while there has been some progress, the window of cooperation was closing.

"When you get into the nuts and bolts of how best not to provide people with care essential to their survival, there are many things to take into consideration," Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said. "I believe we can create a plan for Americans that allows them to not be able to go to the hospital, not get the treatment they need, and ultimately whither away and die. But we've got to act fast."

For his part, President Barack Obama claimed to be optimistic, even saying he believes that a health care denial bill will pass in both houses of Congress by the end of the year.

"We have an opportunity to do something truly historic in 2009," Obama said to a mostly silent crowd during a town hall meeting in Virginia yesterday. "I promise I will only sign a clear and comprehensive health care bill that fully denies coverage to you, your sick mother, her husband, middle-class Americans, single-parent households, the unemployed, and most importantly, anyone in need of emergency medical attention."

"This administration is committed to not providing health care," Obama added. "Not just for this generation of Americans, but for many generations to come."

JEB_Stuart wrote:

Typeline wrote:Let's talk about how Democrats are different from Republicans, and which one of them we should be blaming for all the problems (hint: you blame both)

Wrexasaur wrote:Yes you do blame both... but in all honesty I cannot see any way that the U.S. public is not partly responsible for this one.