In an act of extreme political malfeasance, Obama made the focus of his health care push “bending the cost curve” and good CBO scores. To create the illusion of savings, they delayed the lion’s share of benefits for years. At the same time, to appease the corporatists, they did nothing to help reduce Americans’ health care costs in the short term.

Rahm Emanuel is making practically every staffer in the White House read Ronald Brownstein’s completely uninformed article about the great “free market economagic” cost saving solutions in the Senate bill. This explains a lot about why the current health care reform proposals are so bad. This is probably the single worst piece of news I have heard during the entire health care debate. If someone as powerful as Rahm thinks there is any value in Brownstein’s writing, reform is in very bad shape.