Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?

If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well? -- Barack Obama

You believe it is the year 1945 1974 1993 when in fact it is closer to 2009. I can't tell you exactly what year it is because we honestly don't know.

Anyway, the biggest story in policy and politics today is (once again) health care reform. We have a president who seems willing to leave it all on the field in fighting for universal coverage, unlike the last Democratic president, who chose to expend much of his political capital on his budget and NAFTA. But right now we have some disarray in Congress. Three bills exist: one in the House of Representatives, one in Ted Kennedy's Senate HELP Committee*, and one in the Senate Finance Committee. The House bill, while largely done, is reportedly being held up in the Energy and Commerce Committee by conservative Democrats (called "Blue Dogs") over cost concerns. The HELP bill has already been voted out of committee but the Finance bill is getting bogged down by bipartisanship and hasn't been released yet.

Although Speaker Pelosi insists that she has the votes to pass the House bill now and despite the rumblings from her office that the August Congressional recess may be delayed until that happens, it looks like the House is going to go home next month without having passed the bill. There doesn't seem to be any suspense in the Senate: they're certainly going home next month without voting. My concern is the vast amount of misinformation being spread about these bills. If it's working on the public, Congressmen returning to their districts for the summer recess are going to get an earful from hordes of angry constituents. The danger, of course, is that any momentum health care reform has right now will be stalled. So for now we have to hope that the misinformation isn't taking root in the public consciousness. And drop your Congressman and Senators a line stressing the importance of getting this done.

I'm sure we'll be talking about the politics and policy of this issue a lot in the next few weeks and months (not sure if the SETI thing is still going to happen?). Stay tuned.

*Note: Sherrod Brown sits on this committee.