The dopey audacity of Obama's giant new health-care bill

In Monday’s blueprint, the president made the decision — certainly audacious and perhaps foolhardy — to press for the comprehensive, near-trillion-dollar package. Getting there would require two steps. The Senate, using the majority-vote process of reconciliation, would tweak the measure as suggested by the president. The House would pass both the tweaks and the underlying Senate bill…

In the House, the only way to cobble together a majority will be to secure votes from moderate Democrats who balked at passing the bill the first time around. These are the lawmakers who are most rattled by the Massachusetts vote — with good reason. For a Democratic House member in a swing district, the politics counsel against voting yes. “This is a career-ending vote,” one Democrat told me — and this was a lawmaker who voted for the original bill.