The Great Health Scare Debate

Congratulations Max Baucus for fielding his version of the health care reform that actually held his name on it, and was allowed to leave the Senate Finance Committee Congratulations to Olympia Snowe from Maine both for having an awesome name and also for being the sole Republican on the Senate Finance Committee to be for it (at least the part about history calling), then had to think and is now against it (or in fairness to her, she's against the Reid version).
Congratulations to Harry Reid for bravely standing there alone on the podium and for inserting a version of a "Public Option" into the proposal before the Senate.
Congratulations to Sen.
Joe Lieberman for feeling relevant and making his bold assertion that the former Democrat now turned whatever seems to work for him most at the moment has decided the time is not right for a public option .
Congratulations Rep.
Nancy Pelosi for bringing forward a House version which also included a public option.
Congratulations to Rep.
John Boehner who has attacked the size of the House proposal with the sort of logic necessary in a bitter debate such as this (I'm sure he'd be comfortable with anything less than 1,800 pages, but 1,900 is just too much!) all the while steadfastly offering up nothing better - brilliant.
Congratulations to all the other politician who will now get their own 15 minutes of fame provided they want it - we'll all be riveted.
Congratulations to those citizens who were so involved in the Town Hall Meetings held across the nation to the point where they actually became the story.
Congratulations to everyone else who is now adequately panicked either about the fact that they don't have health care, they do have health care that they might lose, or they might be forced to pay for everybody else.
Oh, and don't worry - no matter what happens congratulations to the health insurance industry; its safe to assume they make out handsomely no matter the outcome.
Much respect for the Republican Party and the masterful job they've done on this issue where despite being the "Party of No"miraculously they still seem to have the Democrats back on their heels.
Much respect to the Democratic Party for making sure that the "Party of No" label stuck, and for finally standing up to their colleagues across the aisle.
We'd all be remiss without congratulating the guy who really got the ball rolling, and that is our President but somehow he's mysteriously absent at this crucial time other than to say he'd like to see some sort of meaningful reform.
And maybe that is the correct strategy - the guy did win the election after all...
The simple fact is nothing is simple, and the facts on the various Health Care proposals are cloudy at best.
While our politicians and pundits spend time discussing 2010 I think before they do too much congratulating of themselves for whatever they ultimately legislate, they'd better take note of a simple fact - the public seems to be very interested in some version of a public option.