Healthcare, Republicans, Obama and Beyond

Sitting here thinking that after all the huffing and rumbling and backtracking and embracing is done, we won't get anything really set in stone next week.

We will wait till everyone in Congress goes home to hang out. We will wait while they test the sentiments in the home district. We will wait while they eat hot dogs on Labor day.

They will come back. There will be a big bruising fight over whether or not the health plan should include funding for abortion. That will all but kill any sort of single payer option (or rekill it), and certainly doom any package that includes a government-run option.

Heads will rub together. Democrats will get scared of failure. Some sort of co-op or pooled buying system will emerge, along with one or two of Obama's healthcare pillars. Most Republicans will denounce it. It will pass.

For the next year Republicans will continue to decry the health plan, even as, under their feet, the economy begins to reemerge from coma.

Repulicans will struggle, and lose influence. Unless they get someone armed with truth and creativity. That person is out there somewhere. (It's not Sarah).