Health Care: Government of, by and for the people has apparently become a quaint concept to the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. Ramming socialized medicine through now comes down to cash payoffs.

Jonathan Karl of ABC News has exposed what may be the biggest taxpayer-funded bribe in the history of the Republic. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana has been skeptical of her party's proposed radical transformation of the U.S. health system.

"I'm not at all surprised that the public option's been sold as free health care," she told MSNBC last month, for instance. "But there is no free lunch."

But will this "conservative" Democrat end up exchanging her vote for the biggest slab of bacon in congressional history?

As Karl reports, a two-page section of the Senate's monster 2,074-page overhaul package tries to use gobbledygook to hide what could be described in less than one line: "$100 million for Louisiana."

The Bayou State is never mentioned. Instead, the legislation refers to "a State that is one of the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster ... and determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance ... ."

Has it ever been clearer that politicians consider those who gave them their jobs to be fools, to be bamboozled whenever possible?

At last count, Americans for Tax Reform found 18 major tax increases in the Senate health bill. They include:

• An individual mandate tax of as much as 8% of income.

• A $28 billion employer mandate tax.

• A 40% "Cadillac" excise tax on higher-priced private health plans.

• A $6.7 billion annual tax on private health insurance firms.

• A $2.3 billion annual tax on innovative drug companies.

• A $2 billion annual tax on medical device manufacturers.

• Health savings account (HSA) and flexible savings account (FSA) taxes that include a prohibition on using pretax dollars for most over-the-counter medicines.

• A nearly $54 billion Medicare payroll tax hike.

The new taxes total nearly half a trillion dollars, according to Republicans, with a total spending cost of $2.5 trillion; the Congressional Budget Office concludes that the bill's advertised $850 billion price tag is based on unrealistic assumptions.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, moreover, reports that a family of three earning 300% of the poverty level, or just under $55,000, will pay 12% of its income on premiums — nearly $6,600. At 400% of poverty, or $73,240, they pay nearly $8,800.

This is a plan that according to the CBO will still leave 24 million people uninsured, cause 5 million Americans to be dropped from employer-based coverage and leave more than 160 million people who still have job-based coverage ineligible for the much-touted new federal subsidies to help with sky-high premium increases.

This doesn't sound like what the American people voted for. No wonder the process has degenerated into hundred-million-dollar bribes.