By 2015, healthcare costs will hit $4 trillion and account for 20 percent of the US economy.

This political cartoon applies aptly to Congress in general, and they're bungling of health care reform bill in particular.

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It's almost childiss that the issues of public option and abortion funding could stall the health care reform bill in its tracks. I say remove abortion funding from the bill with a stipulation that health insurance companies still offer separate abortion insurance, together with free birth control pills and rubber cocks to Americans who might need coverage for unplanned parenthood. That is, make abortion coverage an add-on item. On the other hand, if the objections to abortion funding is due to abortion being offensive and contrary to religious beliefs than the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state should be invoked to settle the matter.

That said, IMHO, the public option (universal coverage) should remain intact in the health reform bill. Here's my own reasons: There are plenty people on disability or gov't assistance living in my building whom receive free medical among other of life's necessities. If they scraped together enough money to buy themselves a car, they would be then entitled to free car insurance with their purchase paid for by the state. Meanwhile, everybody between billionaire and disability recepients are at whim of the health insurance providers. Spending as a whole on health insurance will go up. However, that fact is a bit decieving. The reason why the total goes up is that mathematically a larger number of people will be covered under a gov't option and overall there's more premiums in the kitty. People will be universally covered for catasthropic illnesses that otherwise would lead to bankruptcy, the same protection legislated in a health care reform bill with it's for members only policy. Theoretically, the individual's bill for health insurance should drop because like anything and everything else where there's a higher volume involved, for example, like the price of a Jack-in-the-Box hamburger.