WSJ: Aim was "a soothing, moderate political gloss to a government health-care takeover"

... the root cause of surging health-care costs is the irrational and regressive tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance only, and both parties left it virtually unmentioned. Mr. McCain missed an opportunity to point out that most people would have done better than they do now under his campaign plan that Mr. Obama savaged in 2008. The subject didn't come up until Democratic backbencher Ron Wyden's 11th-hour argument that "real reform changes the incentives that drive the system" and Mr. Coburn argued that "If we don't reconnect health-care purchasing with health-care payment, we're not going to get good value out of this system."

Mr. Obama also claimed that "Every proposal that health-care economists say will reduce health-care costs, we've tried to adopt," yet this is demonstrably untrue. The White House has delayed its own excise tax on ultra-expensive health plans (previously sold as the key cost-control measure) until 2018, well after Mr. Obama is out of office, assuming he wins a second term.

In the end, after all the bipartisan cooing, the President's 20-minute closing argument explained where the debate really is. Democrats won the election and they are going to do what they want to do, starting next week and on a partisan vote if they can shanghai enough Members.

The point of yesterday's session was to give a soothing, moderate political gloss to a government health-care takeover that will raise costs, greatly expand the entitlement state, and reduce choice and competition—the opposite of everything Mr. Obama claims.