President Bush, who "in coming weeks ... intends to initiate a long-overdue national debate on what to do about health care," is "setting himself up for another Social Security-like failure," Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein writes in an opinion piece. The Bush administration position that "we need to get government out of ... health care" is "nonsense" and "the kind of ideologically charged rhetoric that will immediately ensure that Democrats oppose anything that follows it," Pearlstein writes. According to Pearlstein, Bush must decide that "credible reform" is not possible "without extending health insurance for every American" because such a provision would ensure that Democrats "have no choice but to join in" (Pearlstein, Washington Post, 1/18).

"Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.