So, we're going to increase coverage & reduce costs?

They've put off Sotomayor's confirmation vote for a week. Senator Sessions wants to study her record. Since it is unlikely that he'll actually be doing that, one may wonder, idly, what this is about. Most such Washington moves have some purpose, but we are not likely ever to find out what it is.

If the Senator wants to study something, he might try the Health Care Bill, which, so far as I know, not one Senator or Member of Congress has actually read. Indeed, I suspect that those who wrote the Bill have not read it: that is, it's a work of a committee, each of whom has an agenda, and there's no one whose job it is to look at everything to represent the interests of the American people.

Obama supports the health care bill, continuing to promise that people will be allowed to keep the health care plans they have now; while others, who have read that part of the Bill, say this is not true. There are other details, each of which will be important, but since we don't really know those details, we can't discuss them.

We can look at principles. We are told that we will increase health care coverage while reducing health care costs. I don't know how this is to be done, and I have heard no rational explanation for the claim. I do know that it's unlikely that rushing to pass a Bill that no one understands and almost no one has read is not the best way to accomplish that noble goal.

The way to lower prices is to increase supply, or decrease demand. If there's some other way to accomplish this, I have yet to hear of it. The Bill under consideration seems to increase demand (or at least increase the number of people entitled to make demands, including those with pre-existing conditions). I do not see how it will increase supply. There are other ways to reduce costs -- reform of the "punitive damages" system which allows enormous fines to be levied under civil rather than criminal rules comes to mind -- but the likelihood of any tort reforms in this Bill is essentially zero. Most of the "cost reduction" provisions don't seem likely to be wildly successful.

The President insists that the Health Care bill be passed right away. The silly season continues.