In one day, you can read how the powerful economic interests have defeated the public interest. Start with the  theatrics of the health care "summit"–an event that only underscores how the insurance industry has defeated the people. Already anticipating failure, the president wants to roll back health reform even further:

President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health-care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support the White House has prepared the outlines of a more modest plan.

His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning. [emphasis added]

  Let us grasp this clearly. From the starting point where the Administration never included single-payer, Medicare for All as an option (because of politics, not economics) to a place where a weaker public option was being advanced to the next stage where the public option was removed entirely from consideration to today where the president’s "line in the sand" principle that any health care proposal must cover all Americans is now also quickly becoming a distant memory in favor of covering only 15 million people. Ironically, the insurance industry might be upset by this since it cuts dramatically the new customer base, and the massive windfall profits, that would have been created if everyone had been forced into the private industry’s hands.

   It is astonishing.

   And here is how Wall Street is winning again–after pouring tens of millions of dollars into the effort to defeat reform:

The Obama administration is no longer insisting on the creation of a stand-alone consumer protection agency as a central element of the plan to remake regulation of the financial system.

In hopes of quick congressional approval of a reform bill, White House officials are opening the door to compromise with lawmakers concerned about creating a new bureaucracy, according to congressional and some administration sources.

President Obama’s economic team is now open to housing the consumer regulator inside another agency, such as the Treasury Department, though they still prefer a stand-alone agency. In either case, they are insisting on a regulator with political autonomy and real teeth so it can effectively enforce rules designed to protect consumers of mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.

   Let’s understand this: putting the protection of consumers in the hands of the Treasury Department is a cruel hoax. The current Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, was part of the whole culture of Wall Street that led to the financial crisis in 2008; he stood by and let it happen. But, Geithner is besides the point–the Treasury Department is attuned to the bond markets and Wall Street, not the public, no matter who is running that agency. This is a complete and wholesale capitulation to Wall Street.

   Which leaves the question that we must ask: what line in the sand will elected officials draw on behalf of THE PEOPLE?