Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took the Obama administration's health care platform to the Democratic Leadership Council's policy forum today, reiterating the administration's plan to make its health reform efforts deficit neutral.
"In the days ahead, we will work with Congress and address other proposals for funding health reform. We are open to good ideas. But we are not open to deficit spending," Sebelius said.
"Health reform will be paid for and it will be deficit neutral over ten years."
Whether this is possible is a big debate right now, and it depends to some degree on possible cost savings in Medicare, health cost savings across the board, Congress's ability to stick to proposed budget rules, and finding money to pay for early deficits within ten years.
The realism of deficit-neutral health reform is something that's doubted by many, but the administration is sticking to it, and Sebelius laid it out in black-and-white terms today.
We'll see. I have little faith that Congress can actually do anything deficit neutral, whether or not they agree on a plan to do it. Fortunately, I have even less faith that they'll get any meaningful healthcare legislation passed. Unfortunately for Obama, that just may spell the end to the "Change You Can Believe In" revolution once and for all, especially if rising gas prices and a stagnant jobless "recovery" spell "Debt Crisis II - The Horror Continues," coming to a market near you for the holidays.