Maybe Baucus Bill Is Better Than Nothing

Even David Brooks has become convinced that the health care system needs a fundamental overhaul—and unfortunately, it’s not going to get one. The best option, Democrat Ron Wyden’s proposal to let employees take their employer’s contribution and spend it on an open health care exchange, was killed in committee, thanks to insurance company pressure.  That means we’re going to get “health insurance reform, not health care reform,” writes the New York Times conservative.

It’s tempting, then to “throw up our hands and oppose everything,” he writes. “But that’s not what adulthood is about.” Adults have to hold their nose and consider the Baucus bill. It's a clunker that entrenches a flawed system, retards innovation, and redistributes income from the young to the old—but it might be better than nothing. “If I were in Congress,” he muses, I’d “get engaged as a provisional supporter to fight to make it better.” (More Max Baucus stories.)