Sunday, August 2, 2009  

Tip for Dems: If you don't want people to think that subsidized, voluntary end-of-of-life counseling sessions are the camel's nose of an attempt to cut costs  by limiting end of life care , then don't put them in a bill the overarching, stated purpose of which is to cut health care costs! ... I mean, did that provision have to be in the bill? If it really was just an added "benefit" for patients that had nothing to do with cutting costs (which I don't believe for a minute), did it even belong in the bill? Isn't there some group of Congressional Democrats--let's call them "the leadership"--whose job it is to prevent their co-partisans from inserting into major legislation relatively minor provisions that will have the effect of sinking the whole package? ...

Update: Clive Crook notes that Obama has managed to get all the political grief that comes with incessantly talking about cutting costs without doing much to cut costs!  The missed alternative: Simply "sell access and health security as things worth paying for." Seems almost like an easy sale now, doesn't it? ... 11:26 P.M.

___________________________