With football season now gearing up, it's hard not to think of this health care reform debate as the Super Bowl of politics.

So much of our political, economic and social life over the years has been in preparation -- in training -- for this big game.

That's why things have been getting so ugly. The need for reform is so great, the stakes so very high and the opposition so powerful.

Those of us in favor of significant health care reform essentially elected President Obama to be our quarterback. And -- unless the news reports prove me wrong, and I hope they do -- it looks like he might be giving up the ball too many times in the first quarter. And as we all know, few football teams can win when the QB forgets how to throw or give clear direction.

Many Democrats in Congress fear they're about to be betrayed, after they've been tackling opponents over the public option at Town Hall meetings across the country all summer.

And those of us who cheered on Obama during the primary and general elections, putting in countless hours to register voters, canvass neighborhoods and call voters again and again, are watching our dreams of a reform touchdown slip away as the game clock winds down.

Yes, We Can. Hope. Change We Can Believe In. Huh?

Instead, we're getting secret deals with the pharmaceutical industry, a probable reversal on the public option and a push for so-called health insurance "co-ops"?

As Wendell Potter, a former health insurance company spokesman pointed out on CNN.com this morning, the health insurance industry is running the whole show. Working with big PR firms, they're coming up with more key messages than reform opponents can manage to spew out on a single cable news show or picket line.

These masters of manipulation are controlling the debate. Are they also controlling the White House?

Is there really just one coach directing both teams?

New York Times commentator, Bob Herbert, wrote this morning that "Insurance companies are delighted with the way 'reform' is unfolding. Think of it: The government is planning to require most uninsured Americans to buy health coverage. Millions of young and healthy individuals will be herded into the industry’s welcoming arms. This is the population the insurers drool over."

And with no public option, we will have just one option -- the private insurance industry.

Herbert also says to forget about those co-ops, a proposal that pretty much just popped up out of nowhere over the weekend. Watching them play the Blue Cross Blue Shields and Aetnas of this world would be like watching peewee footballers go up against, say, the New England Patriots.

And unlike in those sentimental underdog movies from Hollywood, those little coops can't possibly get a winning goal in the last ten seconds of the game.

Obama campaigned to become a "transformational" president who would fight the big money and special interests, Eugene Robinson reminded us in the Washington Post this morning.

And as Obama faces this, the biggest challenge of his young administration, Robinson asks where will he "draw a line in the sand?"

Okay, so we're all grown-ups and we accept that politics requires some compromise and that campaign promises are just that -- promises. But if Obama compromises us out of real reform on this critical issue, before we even get to half-time, he will turn around to find his team has left the field and abandoned the game.

In this writer's humble opinion, a loss of this magnitude will leave Democrats -- and the country -- with a political price to pay for generations to come.

We're also grown-up enough to know that there is no incentive whatsoever within the medical industrial complex to reform the system itself, no matter how much the major players may pretend to be going along with the gag. Too many people are making too much money to truly want to alter the status quo.

At the same time, some Democratic leaders, including Pelosi, Rockefeller and Feingold, seem to be putting more muscle into the game even as they watch their QB stumble down the field, and this renewed effort from Congress offers some hope for an eventual win.

Because if we lose this game, the GOP will regain some of its former power -- if you'll forgive another analogy -- like a hurricane gathering strength out in the Atlantic.

While the full force of that storm may not be felt until the elections of 2012, our best chance right now is to blow some really cold wind in its direction and push it back out to sea.