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The promise of the public plan is a mirage. Its political brilliance is to use free-market rhetoric (more “choice” and “competition”) to expand government power. But why would a plan tied to Medicare control health spending, when Medicare hasn’t? From 1970 to 2007, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose 9.2 percent annually compared to the 10.4 percent of private insurers — and the small difference partly reflects cost shifting. Congress periodically improves Medicare benefits, and there’s a limit to how much squeezing reimbursement rates can check costs. Doctors and hospitals already complain that low payments limit services or discourage physicians from taking Medicare patients.

Even [Yale Political Scientist and Public Plan idea creator Jacob] Hacker concedes that without reimbursement rates close to Medicare’s, the public plan would founder. If it had to “negotiate rates directly with providers” — do what private insurers do — the public plan could have “a very hard time” making inroads, he writes. Hacker opposes such weakened versions of the public plan.

By contrast, a favored public plan would probably doom today’s private insurance. Although some congressional proposals limit enrollment eligibility in the public plan, pressures to liberalize would be overwhelming. Why should some under-65 Americans enjoy lower premiums and others not? In one study that assumed widespread eligibility, the Lewin Group estimated that 103 million people — half the number with private insurance — would switch to the public plan. Private insurance might become a specialty product.

Many would say: Whoopee! Get rid of the sinister insurers. Bring on a government single-payer system. But if that’s the agenda, why not debate it directly? It’s not insurers that cause high health costs; they’re simply the middlemen. It’s the fragmented delivery system and open-ended reimbursement. Would strict regulation of doctors, hospitals and patients under a single-payer system provide control? Or would genuine competition among health plans over price and quality work better?

That’s the debate we need, but in truth, doctors, hospitals and patients don’t want to be limited, whether by government or markets. Congress reflects public opinion. Fearing a real debate, we fake it.

“Along the way, here we are a 14-year-old Internet company that somehow got boring,” said Bartz, who said the company’s 6 percent operating margins were “pathetic” and “unacceptable.”

“Today is the beginning of a journey back to respect,” Bartz said.

Yahoo executives said the company would invest in editorial staff to produce more original features and tweak its online products to keep users on the site longer and boost advertising revenue.

how to deal with institutions that are so big that the government has no choice but to rescue them when they get in trouble.

A senior administration official said on Sunday that after extensive consultations with Treasury Department officials, Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would introduce legislation as early as this week. The measure would make it easier for the government to seize control of troubled financial institutions, throw out management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by the institution.

The official said the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, was planning to endorse the changes in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday.

The White House plan as outlined so far would already make it much more costly to be a large financial company whose failure would put the financial system and the economy at risk. It would force such institutions to hold more money in reserve and make it harder for them to borrow too heavily against their assets.

Setting up the equivalent of living wills for corporations, that plan would require that they come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, a plan that administration officials say ought to be made public in advance.

Say what you like about healthcare reform—say that it is necessary, or it is unnecessary; say that it is just another government program bound to fail, or that it is an important government duty to pick up where the private sector has failed; say that it is a manufactured crisis or that it is the most serious political issue of our time—but you can’t say this bill is rational, well-considered, and logical.

It is political, it is pay-for-play, and it is not reform. Indeed, it is Chicago politics at the National level. How did our most populist modern President since Jimmy Carter come to allow such a state of affairs? Well, apparently, everything—even principle—is negotiable.

Still, we leave the political name-calling for others who care about such stuff. Our business is to make money.

And unless something goes terribly wrong in subsequent legislative maneuvering, we think so-called “healthcare reform” provides the best opportunity for profitable investment in Big Pharma in decades.

The “Audacity of Hope”? Not that we can see. More like, the Audacity of Extortion.

YOUR PET’S MARK The eco-footprints of the family pet each year as calculated by the Vales:

German shepherds: 1.1 hectares, compared with 0.41ha for a large SUV.

Cats: 0.15ha (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf).

Hamsters: 0.014ha (two of them equate to a medium-sized plasma TV).

Goldfish: 0.00034ha (an eco-finprint equal to two cellphones).