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Liberals Push Panic Button on Health Care

By Philip Klein on 6.18.09 @ 11:20AM

After yesterday's news that the Finance Committee would be delaying its health care legislation while they try to slash $600 billion from a draft of the bill that was priced at $1.6 trillion by the Congressional Budget Office, liberal journalists are getting nervous.

Ezra Klein warns:

Health reform is, I think it fair to say, in danger right now. The news out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee was bad. The Congressional Budget Office had scored a partial bill and the result was a total fiasco. But the news out of the Finance Committee is much, much worse.

And Jonathan Cohn, who has been much more optimistic (from a liberal point of view) throughout the Democrats' health care push, sounds the alarm:

Attention fellow liberals who want health care reform: You are in danger of losing the fight for universal health insurance. And it's not only--or even primarily--because of the public plan.

It's because of the money.

On the flip side, based on my conversations, there's a growing sense among Republicans on the Hill that the tide is beginning to turn in their favor the more details come out, and the more we learn how much this will actually cost.