Health Reform in 2014

From a Bloomberg News article on Senator Reid's health care overhaul bill: "Reid also took steps to keep the costs down in the CBO estimate in part by delaying many elements of the bill to 2014 from 2013, including establishment of the insurance exchanges and their subsidies for the poor." If health care is in such bad and urgent need of "reform" as so many Democrats say it is, why wait so long -- five years -- before fixing it? The answer, as the Bloomberg article implies, relates to budget constraints and the desire to game President Obama's promise that the overhaul be deficit-neutral on a decade-long basis. Ten years of taxes and five years of services may equal a deficit-neutral decade, but it doesn't amount to a long-term solution.