Dick Morris asked recently if the Democrats are nuts. Maybe but I don’t think so. I think there’s more going on here in this push for nationalized healthcare than just lunacy -although insanity might very well be playing a role. Morris wrote:

If the Democrats obey Obama’s commands and pass health-care reform legislation by the August recess, they will be committing partisan suicide, akin to lemmings going over the cliff en masse…

The more word gets around about what the bill contemplates, the firmer opposition is going to become. That’s why Obama wants to push it through now, while he still has some popularity left.

And, if the bill passes, then what? The howls of protest from the elderly the first time they are denied health care will be something to behold. It will become evident that immigrants — legal and not — are being given the health care now reserved for the elderly, and the anger will be enormous and instant.

I’m not so sure they’re nuts. There are a few scenarios I have in my mind as to why many Democrats will go along with ObamaCare. But my first reason is I think that it’s not so much the Democrats acting like lemmings as Dick Morris suggested but as scorpions.

1) The Scorpion and The Frog
Everyone’s heard this story:

A scorpion set out on a journey through the forests and hills until he reached a river. He couldn’t see any way across so he asked a nearby frog for help getting across.

“Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?” he asked while approaching the frog.

“Slow your roll there, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for I cannot swim!”

Seeing the logic in this, the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He allowed the scorpion to crawl onto his back and they were about halfway across when the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

“Dude!” croaked the frog, “Now we’re both gonna die! Why did you do that?”

The scorpion simply said, “I couldn’t help myself. It is my nature.”

Then everybody died.

You see, I think there are Dems who know that this will likely hurt the Party’s chances in the next election cycle but they can’t help it. They’re liberals. Socialists even. It’s in their nature to expand government. They see the poll numbers crashing for Democrats but they can’t help it. They just figure they’ll work out the whole “paying for it” thing later.

#2 They’re Martyrs
It’s possible some Democrats might see themselves as martyrs to the liberal agenda. This one actually scares me the most for obvious reasons. Because this means there’s no scaring them into doing the people’s will.

#3 Playing the Long Con
The Dems see ObamaCare as a short term electoral disaster and a long term win for the party. Because once it’s in place, I think we can all agree, there will be no getting rid of it. Nobody, and I mean not even the most fiscal conservative, is going to run for office on taking away people’s “free” healthcare. Look at Social Security. It’s going broke. Everyone knows it’s an unsustainable model. But everytime Republicans talk about a “private option” they get killed. If you’ve noticed, the GOP hasn’t talked about it in a while. They figure it’ll be the same with with ObamaCare.

The Democrats know that every time a Republican comes along trying to cut things out of our “free” healthcare the Dems will have an easy method of demonizing them.

In the end, I think it could be a mixture of all three that will carry the day for the Democrats and push America into a socialized healthcare model.

Socialized medicine is only going to make things worse. Life and death decisions will be decided by bureaucrats with nearly zero accountability to people. The very issue of life itself will become a weight to be measured in a cost/benefit analysis. And there will be no arguing with the bureaucratic leviathan over whether it treated so and so fairly or unfairly. (At least you can sue and HMO) Or if this were the right call or wrong call on that patient. Bureaucracies are impersonal. That is their nature.