Politics 1, Reason 0

According to Jacob Weisberg, Medicare Part D, passed by Republicans in 2003, will cost $1.2 trillion over ten years and was financed entirely by deficit spending. The Senate health care reform bill costs $848 billion and will not add to the deficit. And yet Republicans are against it. Sen. Charles Grassley is opposed to it on the grounds that it "expands the deficit, threatens Medicare, and does too little to restrain health care inflation." Weisberg infers from these facts that the Republicans' complaints about health care reform are "disingenuous" and he concludes that they are not serious about health care reform. Read Weisberg's piece here. Of course, we all knew this already, but Weisberg's piece is interesting in spite of that fact.

One might also believe that the Democrats aren't serious about health care reform either. The prominent health care reform bills have been so watered down that they barely resemble what many of us had in mind when we dreamed about reform back in January. It is easy to be disappointed in Obama's failure to lead and the Democrats' failure to show real courage and backbone in the Senate and the House. 2010 will be a dark year for Democrats indeed.