Ceci n'est pas une plan

President Obama says,

We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.

...

So we have a short-term problem and we also have a long-term problem. The short-term problem is dwarfed by the long-term problem. And the long-term problem is Medicaid and Medicare. If we don't reduce long-term health care inflation substantially, we can't get control of the deficit.

So in other words, Medicare is broken and will bankrupt us, therefore we must expand Medicare-type programs to cover a lot more people. This reminds me of the old joke about the basketball player who asks his coach, "Why is the basketball round?" The coach answers, "You have actually asked two questions. The first is, 'Why?' The great philosophers of the world have been unable to answer this question, so I can't help you. The second question you've asked is, 'Is the basketball round?' The answer to this is 'Yes.'"

I am going to go out on a limb here and venture a prediction that serious healthcare reform will not happen before the 2010 elections. There is simply no politically-acceptable way to pay for it, and after trillions of dollars shoveled into "stimulus" and bailouts, the public's appetite for deficit spending is going to bottom out.