Private insurers are the scorpion in the story of turtle and the scorpion. They have proven for decades they will do anything to avoid regulation, and will always put profits over the health care needs of regular Americans. Heck, by law, as for-profit corporations, they are required to put profits over everything else. Democrats let insurance companies hop on their back, and now they are smack-dab in the middle of the river with them. Don’t scream when they sting you–it is just their nature.

In the waning days of the debate over health care legislation, the White House’s political team did a fairly good job of convincing Democrats in Congress, Washington reporters, and like-minded writers that the act would somehow get a lot more popular after it was actually signed into law. The latest CNN poll (PDF) shows that is not really happening–opinions about the health care law, in general and specific, are little changed.

House Republicans used a motion to recommit yesterday to remove the individual mandate from the Affordable Care Act, but failed by a 230-187 margin. Joseph Cao (R-LA) was the only Republican to vote against the provision, while 21 Democrats voted for it.

The Congressional Budget Office just revised upwards the projected cost of the new health care law by $115 billion, a law written, supported, and sold to Americans by PhRMA and the for-profit hospitals. Until Congress is actually willing to take on these groups directly, we regular Americans will continue to get ripped off. . . and our deficit will continue to increase.

The newly passed health care law is not popular, and Republicans are starting to line up behind a political strategy of calling for its repeal. While true repeal seems like a legislative impossibility, the political strategy might work. When forced to choose between the false duality of this new health care law or no law, a large portion of the American people line up behind repeal. The relatively good news for Democrats is that most Americans don’t like the bill, but would prefer to see it significantly changed instead of repealed. This creates the perfect political environment to push for a better and quicker optional state waiver.

Oh, poor, poor Michael Bennet (D-CO). He just doesn’t seem to understand how the legislative process works. He took to the Senate floor to praise what the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”–which was signed yesterday by President Obama–will do. That bill is now law. Today they are working on a completely different bill, a budget reconciliation bill, which mostly contains some tax changes that will not go into effect for years.

It is completely within his power to get a vote on the public option at this very moment because of the rules of reconciliation. All he needs to do is offer an amendment, and it will get an up-or-down vote in the Senate. In fact, a reconciliation that deals with health care is basically the only time Bennet can be assured to get an up-or-down vote on the public option.

This reconciliation bill might be the last chance for Democrats to deal with looming, politically damaging problems caused by the inclusion of an individual mandate, enforced by the IRS, which forces people to buy private insurance. Reconciliation could be used to strip the individual mandate out of the new law, or it can be used to add a public alternative, which makes the individual mandate significantly less unpopular. Foolish Democrats in the Senate seem dead set against dealing with what will likely be a toxic issue for them in November.