"Health Care Reform in Danger"

This sucks.

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.

Put simply, the Finance Committee wanted its bill to cost $1 trillion over 10 years. The CBO returned an early estimate to the panel on Tuesday night: $1.6 trillion over 10 years. The specifics of the estimate have not been made public. But the final number changed everything. Max Baucus, the chairman of the committee, pushed markup back behind the July 4th recess. He has promised to get the bill below $1 trillion over 10 years.

That's very dangerous.

Read the whole sad story here. All I can say is, if we don't get health care reform done this time, we'll never get it done. And if we don't do it right ("right" defined as covering everyone, portability, affordability, and definitely a public option), then what's the point? Frustrating.

P.S. As if that's not bad enough, Tom Daschle appears to be folding on having a "public option" as part of health care reform. That's not acceptable.

P.P.S. Now it appears that Daschle may be walking back his earlier comments and is "still committed to the public plan." Hmmmm.