Searching for the Pulse in Health Care Reform

In this morning's Washington Post, Dana Milbank's story on health care reform appears under the headline, "The Slow, Slow Pulse of the Deliberative Body." His take?

Congress will probably pass health-care reform. Less clear is whether anybody now living will be around to see it.

It's a good, entertaining read highlighting the Senate road bumps.

According to the Wall Street Journal, health care rates behind the economy and government spending on the public's list of top concerns.

White House officials are more closely watching independents. By 2 to 1, that politically pivotal group would rather see the White House and Congress bring the deficit under control.

That said, 31% of those in the Journal/NBC poll identified job creation and economic growth as the highest priority for the federal government to address, by far the biggest priority. The deficit and government spending came next, at 19%.

Health care came in third at 16 percent.

The New York Times has a good story on the scramble to cut costs from health care reform. As they say, easier said than ...

The Finance Committee has wrestled all week with the three biggest issues in the health care legislation: how to pay for coverage of the uninsured, whether to create a new public insurance plan and whether to impose new obligations on employers.

But it is the cost of the legislation that seems to bedevil lawmakers the most. A budget office estimate of $1.6 trillion as the cost of an earlier Finance Committee draft sent members hunting for ways to pare the expense.

Seattle Times business columnist Jon Talton, writing at his personal blog Rogue Columnist, is not pleased.

Healthcare reform seems all but dead. Even the whateverthehellitmeans "public option" is struggling. Tom Daschle, who proved such a formidable leader for the Democrats during the onset of the Bush calamity, is urging President Obama to drop it. There just aren't the votes in the Senate.

...It's easy for the senators to be complacent. They are deep in the pockets of the healthcare and insurance industries. The wife of Sen. Chris Dodd earned hundreds of thousands of dollars and stock grants serving on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living, and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals. And Dodd is one of the good guys? Daschle has his own conflicts. The for-profit medical and insurance industries, along with the U.S. Chamber and assorted business lobbyists can bring hundreds of millions of dollars to bear to maintain the status quo. The only people who think this is a good idea are the diminishing ranks of Americans who have good insurance.

I think Michael Barone's got it right.

The blunt fact is that most Americans are satisfied with their health insurance and don't believe major legislation will improve things for them. This gives opponents of the Democrats' rush to legislate a strong talking point.

Tack on a trillion-dollar price tag and there's plenty of reason to slow down.