FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Life After the Death of the Public Option

Why doesn't the public option have the votes for passage? You'd think that a provision that is both fairly popular and money-saving was a good bet for passage. But the insurance industry really, really does not like the public option. We'd previously estimated that its lobbying influence has cost the public option something like nine (9) votes in the Senate.

This is an unpleasant truth. But just because it's an unpleasant truth doesn't mean that it's not the truth.

This is a problem. When a perfectly reasonable and useful idea can't get passed because special interests with a lot of money scuttle it, our democracy is broken. I don't even think insurance companies are necessary. The fact that they have power and money makes this whole thing even more absurd.