It's a Cruel, Cruel Summer. . . .

In an effort to keep health care reform alive, President Obama may have killed it by suggesting that a public option program may not be necessary. Well, in the case, maybe health care reform may not be necessary. Health care reform without a public program for people who can't afford private insurance may be taken off the table in order to get a bill passed in the Senate. We might as well forget reforming the medical insurance system for another fifteen years.

There aren't enough votes in the Senate to pass a bill with a public option despite a Democratic majority of sixty seats. Paradoxically, as many as one hundred Democrats in the House, led by Anthony Wiener of New York, refuse to support a health care reform bill if a public option is not included.

Health care reform in America is dead unless Obama bypasses the Republicans and gets some kind of public plan passed and twists a few arms in the Senate. I can't think of anything more depressing.

No, I'm kidding, this is America, so I can. Minnesota right-wing congresswoman Michelle Bachmann - who makes Sarah Palin look like Hannah Arendt - is thinking of running for President in 2012.