Yes, Virginia, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress are poised to finally deliver change this Christmas. But instead of the usual bounty of gifts, the country can expect coal in its stockings, courtesy of the health care "reform" bill about to be approved by the Senate.

Candidate Obama promised a new era of "transparency" and "bipartisanship" in Washington. What we're getting instead on health care is secrecy and brute-force, Chicago-style partisanship. The Senate spent 17 days debating the bill that no members other than a few Democratic insiders were allowed to see. And then at the very last minute it was superseded by a "manager's amendment" they had secretly hashed out. The final Senate vote on the resulting 2,733-page bill is expected (as this was written) to take place on Christmas Eve.

It is not expected to receive the vote of a single Republican senator, nor should it.

Merry Christmas, America!

Democratic leaders were urgently trying to get the health bill passed, even as poll after poll showed public support for the president, for the bill's goals and for the Democrats' brand of health care reform plummeting. The more the public sees of this president, the less it likes him. And the more it learns about the health care reform bill, the less they like it. Hence the urgency to pass the bill by Christmas before it becomes politically impossible to do so.

That explains why Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid was so willing to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions to win the votes of wavering Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

Those hundreds of millions will be coming from taxpayers in the other 48 states, by the way - including Georgia.

"This bill dissolved into a game of 'Let's Make a Deal,'" complained U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)

Yet Obama, Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest still claim, absurdly, that their bill will save taxpayers money. They only are able to make that claim because they are using 10 years' worth of revenues - but only eight years' worth of expenses - to "balance" its costs. We would call that "Chinese arithmetic," but that would be an insult to the Chinese. And the staggering costs of that bill will come on top of the $100 billion in tax dollars the Obama administration said last week our country would hand over to developing nations to entice them to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gasses.

"Democrats cannot hide the fact that when you're raising the type of revenues in this bill, that money is ultimately going to be paid by the consumer. Any time government raises taxes it raises the cost of living for the American people," Isakson said. "It's a ruse and a masking of the actual fiscal effect on the United States of America. This has not been a thoughtful process, and it is an unfortunate way to do business."

Yes, the Senate bill does include a provision allowing young adults to retain their insurance coverage under their parents' plans through age 25 (it's 26 in the House bill), and banning insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. But those are among the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak bill.

In addition to the bill's budget-busting $2.5 trillion cost and the non-partisan way it is being rammed through, it also shifts responsibility for health care decisions from you and your doctor to faceless, bean-counting bureaucrats in Washington. In addition, despite the Democrats' stated intent for the bill to finally insure all Americans, their bill will leave an estimated 23 million Americans without health insurance. In other words, this bill is a travesty.

Syndicated columnist Michael Barone summarized the situation well: "Obama first came to national attention in 2004 by promising to heal partisan, ideological and racial divisions. Like the other two Democratic presidents elected in the last 40 years, he campaigned in the center and started off governing on the left. In Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill we are seeing the results."

They're not pretty - and the passage of time is not likely to reverse their lack of attraction.