Yikes! Public Approval for the Senate Bill as of last week: 36% (!)

Take this with a grain of salt, since these poll numbers were arrived at BEFORE the awful Medicare compromise. But still...this gives you a good idea what most Americans think about the Democrats' plan to overhaul our health care system. (CNN poll link: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/12/10/rel18h.pdf)

61% of those polled oppose the Senate effort, and yet, incredibly, Reid and Co. forge ahead anyway. When will the Democrats in Congress today realize that Bill Clinton was right when he said, "The era of big government is over"? Americans are fed up with out-of-control government spending, fed up with higher taxes and intrusive government regulations that sap the free-market of its dynamism, fed up with enormous deficits and a sky-high national debt...and most of all, they are fed up with elected officials who believe THEY know best. Wrong. The American people know best how to spend their money, not the out-of-touch legislators in DC, many of whom have been reduced to mere captives of special interests.

Even more amazing: 46% of those polled believed the Senate version of reform will help other people but NOT themselves, and 29% more say it will help NO ONE. A paltry 22% believe the legislation would help them personally. Wow.

Now that it appears that the "public option" is dead in the Senate, it's time for the Senate to begin debating the expansion of Medicare proposal that they've put on the table. Considering just how disastrous this plan would be (only in Washington DC is drastically expanding a program already headed for bankruptcy considered an accomplishment), let's hope that the American public has adequate time to understand the Senate bill before it's voted on. The stakes are simply too high to have this bill rushed through the Senate and rammed down our throats.