The Senate Finance Committee voted twice this afternoon against the creation of a government-run health insurance plan, or “public option.” Members of the panel first voted 15 to 8 against Senator John D. Rockefeller’s proposal, and then followed up by voting 13 to 10 against the proposal put forward by Senator Charles Schumer.

Among those voting against the first proposal were five Democrats: Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Montanna), Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas), Kent Conrad (North Dakota), Bill Nelson (Florida) and Tom Carper (Delaware). Here’s hoping they all find themselves without insurance after being resoundingly voted out of office.

Baucus, of course, says it’s not his fault that he voted no. According to him, he only did so because he knew that they wouldn’t be able to get the 60 votes they needed in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster.

And where in the hell is the Democratic leadership on this? Why, when public polling consistently shows that 75% or more of Americans favor a public option, can’t they get it done? It’s got to be corruption, right? It’s got to be the money pouring in from the health insurance lobby. There’s no other explanation for it.

If you like signing petitions, MoveOn just launched one. You can find it here. Or, better yet, invest a little time in finding individuals to run against these so-called Democrats come election time.

update: At least one person is encouraged by the outcome of today’s votes. The following clip comes from Robert Creamer:

In a surprising vote Tuesday, ten Democrats voted to add a public option to the most conservative of the five health insurance reform bills working their way through Congress. That’s just two votes short of passage.

This robust support for the public option — in what most observers consider the most conservative committee in the Senate — signals a sea change in Congressional opinion toward the public option. The odds are now very high that some form of public health insurance option will be included on the final bill when it emerges from a House-Senate Conference Committee later this fall and is ultimately passed by Congress…

update: Huffington Post Editor Roy Sekoff on MSNBC’s “Ed Show”:

update: And here’s a little something on the money trial, by way of Open Secrets and Intershame.

…Americans support the notion of a government administered health insurance plan by a margin of 65% to 26%. According to the same poll, people who identify themselves as Democrats favor the public option by a margin of 81% to 12%. That’s nearly 7 to 1 in favor of, yet the representatives of the Democrat party in the Senate Finance Committee only voted for the public option at a ratio of 8 to 5. Perhaps the most interesting number revealed by this poll is that Republican voters favor the public option 47% to 42%.

So why can’t the people’s representatives in Washington get behind the public option? Specifically, why can’t these five Democrats get behind it when 81% of people in their party want the option. The answer I’d like to hear is that less than 50% of the voters they represent back home oppose the public option so they’re voting on behalf of their constituents, however, the numbers we see in the NYT/CBS poll make that extremely unlikely. So if that’s not the reason, what is? One likely answer is money. Look at the amount of money the health industry has pumped into these five Democrat’s coffers:

Max Baucus got $7,734,102, Blanche Lincoln received $4,190,592, Ken Conrad took in $3,287,891, Bill Nelson was given $2,414,895 and Tom Carper accepted $1,592,380 from health industry interests.

Can someone please remind me why this isn’t illegal? It’s that we determined that cash is free speech, right?