Debt forever with government-run healthcare

Gallup: "Americans still leaning against healthcare legislation"

Americans currently tilt against Congress' passing healthcare legislation, with 49% saying they would advise their member to vote against a bill (or they lean that way) and 44% saying they would advocate a vote in favor of the bill (or lean toward advising a yes vote).

Despite the considerable efforts of Congress and the president to pass health insurance reform, the public remains reluctant to endorse that goal. Over the past month, Gallup has found more Americans opposed to than in favor of healthcare legislation, though at least one in five say they have not made up their minds. Proportionately more independents (27%) and Democrats (24%) than Republicans (14%) are undecided, which at least improves the odds that legislation could wind up getting majority public backing. But the recent trend has been in the opposite direction, with opposition growing.

John Gordon Steele explains why Americans have soured on healthcare reform:

The public is aware of the situation and in poll after poll puts deficit reduction as its No. 1 priority. So what will the greatest deliberative body in the world - as the U.S. Senate loves to call itself - spend the month of December deliberating about? The greatest expansion of the federal government’s responsibilities since Lyndon Johnson left the White House 40 years ago.

And add to the deficit it will since there's zero chance of Congress cutting Medicare by a half-trillion dollars and cost containment efforts in the original bills are already being thrown overboard:

In merging bills drafted in committee, meanwhile, Reid significantly watered down two of the most important cost-containment provisions: a tax on high-cost health insurance policies that was opposed by labor unions and an independent commission that had been designed to automatically and methodically restrain Medicare spending. Senior White House officials have called those provisions critical, but House leaders are adamantly opposed to both.

By a wide majority, Americans know that the current bills moving through Congress will explode the deficit. Why does Congress pretend otherwise?