Why the Democrat's "health reform" is in trouble

Why is the Democrat's "health reform" in trouble? The short answer is lack of effective leadership from the White House.

To elaborate: Obama's decision to campaign for health care reform, like that to endorse the Afghanistan war as the "good" war, was made for tactical political reasons rather than objective cost-benefit analysis. I doubt he ever really bothered to understand what kind of reform was needed. He just assumed that Democrats in Congress would come up with something for him that would placate his progressive base even as he otherwise offended it over his continuation of Bush-Cheney policies with regard to widening warfare and evasions of the rule of law. He has failed to understand that tactical political maneuvers, however expertly executed on his behalf by experienced pols, would not produce a result of visable net benefit to the public unless guided by a well informed strategic purpose.

Obama is just a charismatic campaigner who erroneously assumed that policy "wonkery" could be safely left to others.

Obama's biggest mistakes, (aside from not wanting to prosecute Bush Administration criminals or disown the AfPak war).

Trying to do health care reform at the same time as dealing with the threat of a potential new depression was a grave mistake. Even granting that health care reform could have major economic benefits those only develop over the LONG term. The economic crisis demands, for now, a short term focus. Complicating the situation with health care reform only confuses and scares the public and makes effective short term measures harder to justify and implement.

Also Obama's economic rescue program paid way too much attention to Wall Street and not nearly enough to Main Street. We have missed a chance to liquidate normally "too big to fail" financial Tyrannosaurs too clever by half in derivatives flimflam and delayed the evolutionary advance to smaller, more economically useful investing institutions.