Here's the situation, gentle reader:  There are no Libertarians in National Office.  The Republicans are already caving, with language like, "If the Democrats are going to pass healthcare ledislation anyway, then shouldn't it at least...?"  The Democrats are looking down through their pince-nez at anyone daring to criticize the plan to their faces.  It's beginning to look like a fait-accompli and a bigger win for the Democrats than even most opponents of the current health care legislation have realized.

It could, in fact, mean a Democrat lock on power for a VERY long time indeed.  And it won't matter at all if the worst doom-and-gloom predictions of their opponents come true, and the country ends up with sub-basement quality care, rationed access and stifled innovation.

It will only matter WHEN that happens.

Before we start, let me say that I have no doubt that there are a great many Democrats - both in office and in the rank-and-file - who sincerely believe that what they like to call a "single-payer" system of health payment coverage (and I call a Government run, socialized medical system) will actually WORK and will produce GOOD results.  I think they are dead wrong, but that is another discussion.  Here, I want to talk about a venal, purely political calculation that I am quite convinced IS in the minds of at least SOME of the movers and shakers behind the current push in Washington.  I say that without any documentary evidence, solely because it seems to me that, if they haven't thought about this, then they haven't thought about this.

Okay - here we go- stay with me.  Keep your hands inside the blog at all times.

First, let's assume a worst-case scenario for the Democrats AND for the American People... That will be if the Republicans and Democrats manage to get together and craft *bi-partisan* health care demolition.  Anything they manage to agree on will be about as useful as a gazelle with tank treads (made by the lowest bidder, of course).  It will combine the most massive give-aways to the corporate-welfare drinkers with the most intrusive nanny regulations of the tiniest part of your relationship with your doctors.  The true "nightmare" scenario.  In other words, Phase II of the HMO wonderland that the Congress bequeathed to us in the 1980's.

But that's not the Win-WIn scenario or even the Win-Lose scenarios for the Democrats.

So let's keep imagining:

The Democrats in the House and Senate steamroller the minority Republicans, and enact something like the Toxic Medical Avenger currently stomping through the halls of Congress.  What then?

Well, first of all, there's the worry of a backlash.  IF enough Democrats are voted out of office in the next election cycle, and IF their replacements (of whatever party) have the stones to REPEAL what was done, then (and ONLY then) the Democrats lose.  Do you want to take any bets on whether that backlash will happen and whether any new Congress will have the intestinal fortitude to say, "Reverso!' like legislative Harry Potters?  I didn't think so.

So let's keep imagining:

Two possibilities emerge here...

First Possibility - It turns out that the nay-sayers are wrong, socialiized medicine in the United States becomes the 8th Wonder of the World, death is abolished, and the human lifespan extends to the 600 years that statisticians calculate we can go on living without succumbing to an accident.

Outcome?  The Democrats become the party that saved everyone, and they live happily in power ever after.

Not very likely.

Second Possibility - It turns out that the nay-sayers are right, and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.

Outcome?  Well, here's where the "WHEN" becomes so incredibly important.  All the Deomcrats need to do to cement their power is to stave off the collapse for about 30 years.  If that happens, it won't matter a bit how bad it gets.  An entire generation will have grown up knowing nothing else but the Government system.  There will be NO examples of a better way (outside history books, and who reads those) to point to .  And any opposition will have two choices:  Be the party that wants to dismantle the "natural way of life", or Be the party that wants to "fix" the system, in which case how are they different from the Democrats who built the system in the first place?

We see this already.  It's pretty evident that the Walker and Power-Chair contingent in our society are routinely terrified with the Boogeyman that anyone but a Democrat is an evil, mustache-twirling villain bent on taking their [fill in the Government benefit] away and letting them die in agony.

How will it be different when the nation's populace is dependent on the Government for health care?  Those who aren't in immediate need won't care (just as so many of our healthy young disdain to buy health insurance right now, even when they could easily do so), and those using the system will not dare to rock the boat.

So, the bottom line is, Health Care Legislation may well be the biggest gamble - with the biggest potential PAYOFF - that the Democrats have ever had before them.  The risk that they will lose in this battle - not lose the legislation, but lose the political advantage they now have in their hands - is very slight.

What's our best hope?  Simply that, like the Republicans who sailed into office in the 1990's on the winds of the Contract With America, that they lack the gumption to follow through.  I usually will bet on Politicians being a timorous lot.  Please, let's hope that's the way to bet now.