Baucus bill is a bad one, go the reconciliation route.

I'm certainly not a fan of the Baucus Finance Committee bill, which as I've noted before would force people who can't afford it to pay for insurance anyway-- the same formula as MittCare in Massachusetts, which has not succeeded in that state either. It also would only insure about half of the uninsured today in America.

The fact that the CBO has claimed that it will cost $829 billion over ten years and have a net effect counting savings and new taxes of reducing the deficit by $80 billion still doesn't appeal to me, because I still think it's a lousy bill, period.

That said, it is interesting to hear what Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had to say today.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fired back that Democrats have yet to craft a package that can win 60 votes and, until they do, any claims that the package can dramatically shrink the ranks of the uninsured while lowering the budget deficit are "irrelevant."

Translation: He's still planning to filibuster any bill, and it doesn't matter what is in it or not.

Under the circumstances then it makes more and more sense for Democrats to throw out the half-measures, mandates and tax increases in the Baucus bill and go with a more liberal bill that they push through using reconciliation.