As an institution, the United States Congress, has become the most powerful enemy America faces. This is particularly true of the Senate, the abolition of which would do no perceptible harm and might even turn this country toward democracy.

Read this, from Matt Steinglass:

As Robert Reich details, the slow elimination of the public option as any part of health care reform is a demonstration of the complete dominance the private health insurance industry has retained over the process. What this means is that essentially creating more or less universal coverage in the US is going to mean putting another 30 million Americans on private health insurance, and having the taxpayers pay their premiums.

In theory, later down the road, now that the government is picking up the tab for everyone’s health care, we could start forcing private sector reforms to bring down costs. That’s what happens in, say, the Netherlands, with its all-private universal health insurance system. But the problem is that the process of health sector reform has conclusively demonstrated that private industry has so much power in the American political system that it’s beginning to seem implausible that Congress could ever vote to force cost reductions on any private industry, the health industry included.

Ultimately, one should start to hit a point where taxpayers refuse to subsidize private industry any more. To date, this point has been put off by deficit spending. At some point, however, it’s going to become impossible to do that anymore: some years down the line, government borrowing needs will become so astronomical that they will start to force bond yields up again and crowd out private investment. At that point, business interests will start to balk. Then the government will be faced with a choice: raise taxes, or cut services. What will happen at that point?

Taxes on the politically powerful wealthy will not be raised sufficiently to meet the government’s debt needs. Rather, taxes will be raised on, and services will be cut for, the politically powerless. That means the poor. The poor will pay higher taxes and receive less medical care and worse education. The government will eliminate infrastructure investment. That’s how America works. It’s a two-class society, where class divides are reinforced and exacerbated by the control of the wealthy over the political system.