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As President Obama likes to say, let's be clear: The election of Scott Brown didn't sound the death knell for health care reform. Obama and the Democrats put reform on life support right from the start by never giving single-payer serious consideration. That life-support came in the form of the public option.

But over the summer and fall, the politicians started hacking away at the life support machinery, until all that remained was the expansion of Medicare to 55-and-older Americans — essentially eliminating the public option for everyone except people 55 to 64 years old.

But Joe Lieberman pulled the plug on even that, and finally, on December 13th, 2009, Lieberman pronounced reform dead.

Sure, we still may get some needed regulations on the more egregious practices of private, for-profit health insurers. But as long as the so-called people's representatives in Washington fail to provide an effective alternative to the inefficiencies, bureaucracies, and bottom-line self-interest of those insurers, reform simply isn't possible.