Angry mobs and losing hope + Links

So I saw a couple clips on CNN which showed crazy, angry, and yelling mobs at a couple of Congressional town halls yesterday. What saddened me the most is that most of the outraged people were white and older. I interpreted this as people who will or already are eligible for Medicare. So why are these folks so upset? Not one of the proposals currently in Congress talks about cutting benefits or changing plans for Medicare or Medicaid. I'm saddened because most of the folks in these town halls seem as misinformed as the gentleman who told Obama to "keep the government hands off my Medicare." Paul Krugman takes a stab at the town halls in his op-ed piece today.

Then there's this article in Businessweek that makes the very strong case as to why any "reform" coming out of Congress is just another windfall for the insurance industry.

My hope for acutal reform is dwindling day by day. And where is Obama in all of this? Nowhere. Obama has been more and more disappointing to me. I think he blew it on the bank bailouts, the environment, and now health care.

UPDATE: Here is a really awesome new perspective on the whole employer health care coverage idea.

UPDATE II: Planet Money talks about health care in their podcast.

UPDATE III: Please don't ever tell me that government run programs are worse than the private sector. I know government can really screw things up, and our politicians are crap, but what year are we in again, 1908? From the video linked here:

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas :

We ensured that if there is a government option, it will be just that -- an option -- and it won't be mandated on anybody. If it had been based on Medicare rates, I can assure you that it would have eventually ended up resulting in a single payer-type system, because Medicare has really good rates, because they're negotiating for every senior in America. Private insurance companies could not have competed with that.