Does Obamacare Have a Cure for Desperation?

If so, please rush a dose to Rahm Emanuel and the Democrat House leadership:

U.S. House Democratic leaders, struggling to reach an accord with party dissidents on health care, said they’re likely to miss President Barack Obama’s August deadline for legislation overhauling the medical system.

“It doesn’t look like it to me,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said in an interview. “I really hoped that we could have gotten a bill out of here by now,” he said, adding that he has a “heavy political heart.”

Obama, who has made revamping health care the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, had urged the House and Senate to each pass versions of the bill before their monthlong August recess so negotiations on a compromise could begin when they return. He’s seeking to provide health coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack it and curb the soaring cost of care.

With the Senate already planning to leave for its recess without voting, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, went to Capitol Hill to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and members of the so-called Blue Dog coalition of Democrats, who object to the cost and structure of the legislation.

The House would only stay in session a few days after the start of the August break if an agreement can be reached to allow the bill to clear the Energy and Commerce Committee, where the Blue Dogs are holding up the legislation, Hoyer said earlier.

Not a ‘Failure’

“Whether or not there will be any productive reason to stay for that period of time remains to be seen,” Hoyer said at his weekly press conference. “It’s unfortunate we didn’t meet our timeline, but I don’t think it’s a failure.”

If there's no bill to vote on before this weekend, there's a good chance that Obamacare will die of heat exhaustion in August. Although Democrats are vowing to continue work on the drafting of the bills, every Democrat congressman that goes home to his district and meet with voters (as most of them do in August) will be met with opposition from people in his district who don't want nationalized health care or cap-and-tax.

The other day there was a town hall meeting at Sen. Claire McKaskill's office in Missouri and a Tea Party broke out. There were more protesters than supporters. There's a good chance the same thing will happen all over the country.