'The report is good news'
And it is. The CBO says the Senate's health-care bill won't add to future deficits. ... Now watch Democrats gum it up. ... Sen. Charles Grassley: “The bill spends nearly $1 trillion and still leaves 25 million people without health insurance. That’s not much bang for the buck.” Hmmm. Is a leading Republican saying it's not good enough because it doesn't achieve full universal coverage? ... I still don't understand why insurers who completely dominate certain states aren't busted up using anti-monopoly laws. Old-fashioned anti-trust action would work better in some/many instances than creating cooperatives. ...

Things I'd like to see in a final bill (and won't because the Benthams of the world rule Washington): true tort reform; stripped-down, affordable health-insurance policies that the young and many lower-income people can actually afford without subsidies; cross-state competition. Things I fear will be in a final bill (because the Benthams of the world rule Washington): token tort reform; some variation of the god-awful public-option; watered-down cross-state competition; tons of benefits mandates that will bulk-up health-insurance policies so they're not affordable to the young and lower-income people.

Update -- Matt writes in about anti-trust action against insurers:

Health insurance and malpractice insurance have been exempt from federal anti-trust action since 1945 and state anti-trust enforcement is a joke. Leahy and Conyers have sponsored legislation to end the exemption but it will likely go nowhere in the Senate. The Senators that are doing the insurance companies' bidding in killing the wimpy public option certainly aren't going to support a proposal that's even MORE inimical to those same companies' interests.

I should have known. Yet another reform that's desparately needed.  ¶ 4:27 AM