Time to make Kent Conrad an offer he can't refuse?

In fairness, not all Democrats are nodding their heads in sympathy with the paranoid style in American politics, displayed during the healthcare debate this summer by misinformed white people shaking their fists in the air at protests and town hall meetings to the media's delight.

But the Blue Dogs in the House are. And more significantly, so are their conservative Democratic counterparts in the Senate.

And while it's bad enough that Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Evan Bayh and the rest of the Senate "Democratic Republican" Caucus are caving to irrational teabagger concerns about, sigh, "socialism" and a looming "government takeover" of healthcare, what's even worse is that the rest of the Democrats, including those in the White House, are in turn caving to Baucus and company.

The increasingly likely result: Watered-down legislation that may or may not be better than nothing, depending on the final structure by which low- and middle-income workers will be rendered captive customers, forced to pay more than they can afford to health insurance companies whose first and highest priority is not providing coverage but collecting premiums.

Does it have to be this way?

Um, no? Your Gleaner offers some hopeful suggestions over on the Guardian's website.