First of all Social Security didnt fail, its simply gotten slightly obsolete because when it was created it was calculated on the life expectancy and population size of people living in the 1930s and later 1960s when Nixon revised it. Most of the problems can be fixed with adjustments like increasing the retirement age. Most experts will tell you that SS has issues but that its not the biggest worry, medicare is far more problematic.
Secondly if you look at the popularity of Social Security, I think that too is testimount of how successful its been. When Bush tried to privatize SS in 2005 (by letting Wall Street manage it...go figure) he was tarred, feathered, and rode out of DC on a rail. And most of the critics did NOT come from liberals, but from older people living in the Red States.
And Thank God they did complain, because if Bush had gotten his way these people would now be on the street due the economic meltdown caused by the very people Bush wanted to manage social security. This is a case in point example of why social programs like social security, and healthcare cannot be trusted in the hands of private organizations.
You say that the Bill is bad? I don't think its great either, but the status quo is even worse, so its better than nothing. There are some gems in the Bill like banning HMO from dropping polcies of people with preexsisting conditions, the closing of the doughnut hole, and the cutting of prosciption drug prices are good programs. Personally though, I would have pushed for a single payer program as that it the only system known to actually work.
The real problem with the bill was that the rightwing was so wound up in embarrassing Obama just for political gain that they refused to participate in making a better bill, which is a shame because I do think their are Republicans who were willing to make a deal but were sidelined by the crazies and the fact that the Health Insurence Industry Lobby basically controls the party. The GOP ran as the party of NO and still lost, thats going to comeback to haunt them in november as they painted themselves as the partisan obstructionist party with no ideas who lobbied for the status quo. Boy thats a winning campaign slogan, espicially by the times the elections come around the popular aspects of the bill will have full public support.
Read the article from David Frum (a major CONSERVATIVE Author) he calles this the GOP's Waterloo, a states why the GOP played this very badly from the start.
http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo
BTW, be aware that the fact that the bill passed makes it the beginning of the healthcare debate not the end. There is still alot of work to do although it will probably be done by a different president.
