60-39. This appears to be a good sign. They may not be able to pass anything.

The problems with this bill are legion. Let's cover a few:

1) This will explode the deficit by trillions of dollars. The Medicare cuts are a three-card monte political ploy; they will never be upheld by future Congresses. The true cost of the bill is being dishonestly hidden by starting costs several years into the plan. The actual cost to the deficit may be as high as $5T over ten years.

2) This will be a devastating blow to civil rights in America. The government will not only demand you buy insurance, they will force you to cover abortion and lots of other things you may or may not want to insure against.

3) This will stifle R&D. The more of America that works under gov't-"negotiated" price controls, the smaller the last big free market for new drugs and treatments gets.

4) This will further cripple a weak economy. The bill requires massive tax hikes in addition to massive deficit spending.

5) This will drive premiums sky-high. There will be less incentive to buy insurance before you need it, and more incentive to consume unnecessary medical services when you have insurance. This will result in insurance increasingly only being carried by people with high medical bills, meaning premiums will need to be extremely high and insurers will start going out of business as their volume of insured falls.

Here are a few commonsense solutions that don't involve ruinous debt, oppressive government intrusion in everyone's lives, a collapse in medical advancement, or a massive tax hike in a bad recession.

1) Expand Medicaid. 50 million of the 62 million people who can't afford insurance are already on it. We can cover the rest without reshaping the entire system.

2) Allow interstate competition between insurers. Why is it we can buy auto insurance from anywhere, but have pitifully few options for health insurance? Unleash the free market.

3) Give individuals the employer health insurance tax credit. Right now it's hard for insurers to compete for your business, because you don't have a lot of control over who your insurer is. If you weren't paying an extra 20-40% more than you would through your employer, it would make a lot more sense to buy your own, and employers would start offering you a choice of health plan or cash equivalent.