Daschle Defeat Can't Delay Health Reform

It’s a pity Tom Daschle couldn’t stick around, notes the Economist, because his experience would be useful in navigating health reform through Senate straits. The recession is depriving more of care, and though President Obama’s short-term moves are good, a big fix is needed. Absent Daschle, “the wrangling seems likely to go on for some time.” A shame, the magazine writes, because dithering is what killed earlier efforts.

The Senate is where Republicans have the votes to block reform. It’s there, also, that Democratic chieftains Max Baucus and Ted Kennedy are feuding over health turf—“precisely such a tangle that Daschle, a former majority leader of the Senate, could have untied,” the Economist adds. Still, even without Daschle, now’s the time to move. (More Obama administration stories.)