WASHINGTON – Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as divisions among Democrats undercut President Barack Obama’s effort to regain traction on his health care overhaul.

As Obama talked strategy with Democratic leaders at the White House, the one idea that most appeals to his party’s liberal base lost ground in Congress. Prospects for a government-run plan to compete with private insurers sank as a leading moderate Democrat said he could no longer support the idea.

Jesus.  Could these idiots implode any more?

The day before the President is going to lay out his plan, what’s the news peg?  Some bonehead from a tiny mountain state wants to fine you if you don’t get health insurance.  Not “health insurance for as many people as possible,” but “we’ll hit you with a fine if you don’t have it.”

I get it.  Baucus wants health insurance to be like car insurance.

You know what?  I want ponies to be like unicorns.

But you would think that the day before the President of the United States is going to lay out his vision for health care – which, quite frankly, has been blurry and all over the map – this small-state, small d, dip**** could keep it in his pants long enough to not be a talking point.  And let Obama’s health care idea live or die based on it’s own merits.

There is no good discussion out of this.  It allows the Sarah Palins and the Glenn Becks of the world to grab on to something simple and turn it into something horrible.  This isn’t an issue steeped in logic, or an era where calm discourse wins, so care needs to be taken to not blow an opportunity for a clear, lean message that defends against demagoguery.  This is the OPPOSITE of that.

So why would he do this?  Why?

Lobbying disclosure filings for the first quarter of 2009 reveal that five of Baucus’ former staffers currently work for a total of twenty-seven different organizations that are either in the health care or insurance sector or have a noted interest in the outcome. The organizations represented include some of the top lobbying organizations in the health sector: Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Researchers of America (PhRMA), America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Amgen, and GE Health Care.

The overall health and insurance sectors haven’t just been kind to Baucus’ staffers, but they’ve also aided his campaigns handsomely over the years, especially in his barely contested 2008 reelection campaign. In 2008, Baucus received $1,148,775 from the health sector and $285,850 from the insurance sector. For his career he has received $2,797,381 from the health sector and $1,170,313 from the insurance sector.

Oh.  Right.  That.

So well done, Max Baucus, you smug putz.   You can slip quietly into your end days knowing that C-blocked your president, sold out the public, lined your own pocket and did not help.

It’s a good thing you’ve got Senatorial health care.

Otherwise, you’d catch your death of dumbass.