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.
