Recommended: Obama's Proposal is the Illusion of 'Reform'

Robert Samuelson's article in this week's Newsweek, Obama's Proposal is the Illusion of 'Reform', pretty much sums up my own view of the health care legislation now being so painfully pushed through Congress. It sounds good in partisan sound bites, but in fact it doesn't provide the reform that is promised, and it fails to do so at an exorbitant cost. Stripped of all the fiscal trickery used to try to make it score "deficit neutral" by the CBO, the best estimates from professional economists is that the real cost is at least $2.8 trillion over the next decade, and probably more, all added to an already out-of-control federal debt.

Democrats may indeed finally succeed in pushing this legislation through, despite the fact that public opinion is running about 2:1 against it. Such hubris cost Republicans control of Congress a few years ago, and I assume the same hubris will cost Democrats dearly this November, as it should.