Health care talks collapsing – Kiss it goodbye our leaders are clueless!

<blockquote>Editor’s Note: I do not hold a lot of stock in Politico usually but the plain truth is no matter if HCR is really dead it sure appears that way. Robert Gibbs has said the President has a full plate and HCR is on the back burner; both leaders in Congress say they do not know how to move forward. It is such a shame that all three just do not want to admit the real truth which is they are all scared after the MA election of Tbaggers.

I am afraid I made the wrong choice in the Democratic primary; maybe Hillary was the right choice. She certainly would have more hands on than Obama has been.

From Politico:

Health care reform teetered on the brink of collapse Thursday as House and Senate leaders struggled to coalesce around a strategy to rescue the plan, in the face of growing pessimism among lawmakers that the president’s top priority can survive.

The legislative landscape was filled with obstacles: House Democrats won’t pass the Senate bill. Senate Democrats don’t want to start from scratch just to appease the House. And the White House still isn’t telling Congress how to fix the problem.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) both tried to put a good face on the obvious chaos on Thursday, promising to press on.

“We have to get a bill passed,” Pelosi told reporters. “We know that.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said, “No way is it dead, because it’s so important for the country. And we will find a way to pass [it].”

But for the first time in the yearlong push, Democratic aides — and even some members — finally acknowledged privately that the fear of failure was real. And Congress recessed for the weekend without an obvious path forward as rank-and-file Democrats started splintering in different directions.

Democrats struggled all year to maintain a coalition in support of health care reform without any GOP votes. Republican Scott Brown’s improbable win in Massachusetts on Tuesday now looks like it has the potential to end that almost-impossible balancing act.

This post-Massachusetts confusion raises the stakes for President Barack Obama’s first official State of the Union address next week, which some now believe must be a last-ditch effort to get health care finished.

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a fierce proponent of health reform, said it wasn’t clear how the Senate should press ahead.

“Obviously, you cannot just proceed as if nothing happened, because something very significant happened,” Schumer said, referring to Brown’s victory. “There is a strong view in both caucuses that we want to do some good things in health care, and the question is how? How much and how quickly?”