It's only money, we like to say, when we know we shouldn't be pulling out our wallets,but …

The 'but' is a big one when it comes to health care reform: huge, immense, Himalayan. So big we're not going to do it, I'll bet you money. Not this year we're not, because we've barely started to think this thing through. We're not ready as a country, as a people, to have President Obama and his congressional minions shove down our throats a new, costly, coercive plan for reordering the way we care of ourselves, or for that matter don't care.

The Democratic-controlled Congressional Budget Office -- no aerie of Reaganite stool pigeons -- says health care reform a la Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd (the Affordable Health Choices Act) would leave more than twice as many Americans uninsured as it would protect, sort of -- 36 million to 16 million, respectively. The CBO says, further, the bill would increase federal budget deficits by $1 trillion between 2010 and 2019.

The so-called "public option" that is central to the Kennedy-Dodd design is supposed to keep the private insurance companies honest. The taxpayers would subsidize the public option, making it seem -- like any subsidized government program -- the way for many to go.

The CBO calculates that 15 million Americans would exit their private plans if Kennedy-Dodd were imposed. Coverage from other sources would fall by 8 million, the CBO says.

This is progress? Large numbers of Americans may be forgiven, perhaps, if they differ on that trivial point.

On Monday, the President assured the American Medical Association that "If we fail to act, premiums will climb higher, benefits will erode further, the rolls of the uninsured will swell to involve millions more Americans …" Continued...