You can't blame one party for the hodge-podge of rules and regulations that make up this healthcare bill. The President and the Democratically-controlled Congress set out to get healthcare for 32 million people. Let's not kid ourselves--that was their main agenda item.

The Dem's proposed government insurance to provide that coverage--a pretty easy extension of Medicare to cover another 32 million people. The Republicans and some of the more centrist Democrats violently opposed that idea and with the encouragement and money from the insurance companies they drove the bill towards private insurance coverage, a far more complicated proposition given the state-oriented system of private health insurance. Heck, the GOP refused to even consider any kind of method for increasing the competition between insurers, including language that would permit competition across state lines, the objective of which was to drive down costs. (There's that insurance lobby at work again.)

But one way or another, the President and the Pelosi/Reid cabal was going to get coverage for all Americans one way or another--something that Presidents since Teddy Roosevelt have tried to get. They traded off anything and everything necessary to achieve that singular goal. If the GOP and the centrist Democrats were going to block the idea of the government providing the insurance for the uninsured, then the leadership came up with the idea of requiring employers and even individuals to buy insurance from private insurance companies. The result is the Rube Goldberg bill that emerged.

But neither party was totally responsible. Their politics and total unwillingness to compromise on anything was.