As medicine homes in on another major advance, Dems clang the fire bell for emergency overhaul

Researchers reported recently that they have found a treatment that not only stops further ravages by Alzheimer's in mice, but also reverses previous damage. This suggests that we may be within years of a cure for a costly, debilitating disease that strikes millions of Americans every year and eventually renders many of them helpless.

In a rational system of governance, the advance against Alzheimer's would seem to have some bearing on calculation of future medical costs, especially for those who are now to receive the benefits of "end of life counseling" through the offices of our overlords in Washington. Future medical costs are, after all, the over-arching argument in the Obama administration's ham-fisted campaign to take charge of health care.

In "The Singularity is Near," Ray Kurzweil, an expert on technological change, theorized that we are approaching the dawn of 200-year life spans. By his calculation, the Singularity will arrive before mid-century.

This would also seem to have some bearing on future medical costs. After all, it promises huge gains in lifetime productivity and relatively disease-free lives. Has it even been mentioned in congressional debate?

Probably not.

What is going on in Washington has little to do with finding a sensible answer to the problem of mounting health care costs. It has to do with creating an artificial urgency, even a frenzy, that will allow the Democrats to build a legislative monument to the Obama administration in the form of government-controlled health care.

Given Obama's plunging popularity, the Democrats may need such a victory in next year's congressional elections.

This is, in essence, a three-alarm presidency. Even routine proceedings, as the health care overhaul ought to be, is elevated to the level of a disaster-in-the-making.

In earlier examples, the administration spent or budgeted trillions of dollars to end the recession and restore growth. But the alarmism went for naught. The recession is still with us.

Now, the administration wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more to seize control of health care even as medical research homes in on another victory over a devastating disease.

Is there a brave pollster out there who will measure the public's attitude toward doctors versus the popularity of a president who has slandered them by suggesting they do unnecessary procedures for the money?