HEALTH CARE DEBATE BEGINS IN THE SENATE - AT 11:30 A.M. ET:  Generally liberal columnist David Broder, who's had some critical things to say about the Obama administration recently, takes on health care.  The Senate debate on a health bill is starting.  It will culminate tonight in a procedural vote, which will test the strength of the various factions.  (There seems to be a new trend to do these things on Saturdays, when fewer people are watching.  I wonder why.) 

Moderate Democrats are apparently being bought off by earmarks, the better to insure their votes for "reform."  The American people are less than enthusiastic, as Broder reports, citing a question in a recent Quinnipiac University survey:

It read: "President Obama has pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our federal budget deficit over the next decade. Do you think that President Obama will be able to keep his promise or do you think that any health care plan that Congress passes and President Obama signs will add to the federal budget deficit?"

The answer: Less than one-fifth of the voters -- 19 percent of the sample -- think he will keep his word. Nine of 10 Republicans and eight of 10 independents said that whatever passes will add to the torrent of red ink. By a margin of four to three, even Democrats agreed this is likely.

That fear contributed directly to the fact that, by a 16-point margin, the majority in this poll said they oppose the legislation moving through Congress.

I have been writing for months that the acid test for this effort lies less in the publicized fight over the public option or the issue of abortion coverage than in the plausibility of its claim to be fiscally responsible.

It isn't fiscally responsible.  And despite lopsided opposition to the bill on the part of citizens, it is being pushed through Congress by the liberal left, which believes that it knows best, that it does best, that it is best.  This is elitism, pure and simple, a belief that those peasants out there couldn't possibly understand something as complex as health care.

Here, for example, is what Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group of budget watchdogs, told me: "The Senate bill is better than the House version, but there's not much reform in this bill. As of now, it's basically a big entitlement expansion, plus tax increases."

Here's another expert, Maya MacGuineas, the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: "While this bill does a better job than the House version at reducing the deficit and controlling costs, it still doesn't do enough. Given the political system's aversion to tax increases and spending cuts, I worry about what the final bill will look like."

The logical conclusion?

The challenge to Congress -- and to Obama -- remains the same: Make the promised savings real, and don't pass along unfunded programs to our children and grandchildren.

COMMENT:  Some chance of that.  The White House turned health care over to Congress, and the result was predictable.  We have a monstrosity, not reform - a bill more than 2,000 pages long, longer than "War and Peace," longer than the Old Testament, and not as inspiring as either. 

In the 1960s the far left developed a plan to flood the political system - with welfare applicants, paperwork, and bureaucracy - hoping to bring down capitalism in the process by paralyzing the country.  It came close to working in New York City.  I sometimes get the feeling that the current crowd in Washington has pulled out that same playbook, producing legislation that floods the system, is impossible to understand, and which will break the bank.

But I'm sure the bill is being published on non-acid, environmentally friendly paper.

November 21,  2009