Conservatives are very excited about Paul Ryan and his budget roadmap. Liberals are also excited, for very different reasons, about Ryan and his roadmap. This tells you that the roadmap is a highly clarifying document.

WASHINGTON -- There is a pathetic quality to our discussion of deficits and fiscal responsibility because we never face up to how much we need government to do.

Our debates are also characterized by a politically convenient amnesia. Just a decade ago, we were running surpluses so big that Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, worried about what would happen once our national debt was liquidated. We had this problem well in hand until we started waging wars and cutting taxes at the same time.

Tim Noah is puzzled:

National Review editor Rich Lowry makes the case that Republicans can repeal health care reform if it passes:

It would be nice if members of Congress voting on health care reform thought more about what's good for the country rather than what's good for their re-election prospects. But let's not kid ourselves. Many Democrats are plainly spooked by the prospect of supporting a measure that, according to the polls, a majority of Americans don't support.

One day, I hope, we will look back at the health care debate as a low point in our national political psyche. The Obama administration and its allies in Congress are on the cusp of bringing some measure of reason to the health care system -- a system so profligate, irrational and cruel that nearly any reform born of deliberate intent could not help but improve it significantly. It's a reform designed in the mold of classic moderate Republicanism, melding fiscal responsibility and compassion for the poor and sick with a series of bold experiments to nudge medicine toward efficiency.

There are a lot of thorny issues in American politics that require a great deal of concentrated attention to grasp. The controversy over budget reconciliation and health care is not one of them. It's pretty simple, and can be explained in thirty seconds or so. And yet large chunks of the political class seem unable to grasp it.

Harold Pollack is the Helen Ross Professor of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago and a Special Correspondent for The Treatment.

Since conservatives continue to swoon unashamedly over Paul Ryan and his near-unique ability to ability to discuss health care at some higher level than Fox News talking points -- more examples of the Ryan love-fest can be found here and here -- I should interject to point out that Ryan h

Harold Pollack is the Helen Ross Professor of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago and a Special Correspondent for The Treatment.

There's been more positive attention of-late to the idea of high-risk pools. Some concrete numbers underscore why the idea doesn't deserve it.

The campaign to sway votes in the House is underway. A conservative group, the League of American Voters, has announced it will be running advertisements in the districts of 13 vulnerable Democrats who voted for health care reform in November. The goal is to pressure them into voting "no" on the Senate bill when it comes up, presumably later this month.

So, rather inevitably, the fate of health care reform now rests largely with a group of Blue Dog Democrats in the House. More specifically, the question is: Can Nancy Pelosi convince a small fraction of her caucus to endorse the Senate version of the bill, even though they initially rejected the House’s iteration? She’ll need to flip these members to her side because the abortion provisions in the Senate bill will necessarily cost her some votes.

Text of President Obama's speech today via the White House:

Dear Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, and Representative Boehner:

Thank you again for the time, energy, and preparation you invested in last Thursday’s bipartisan meeting on health insurance reform. I have always believed that our legislative process works best when both sides can discuss our differences and common goals openly and honestly, and I’m very pleased that our meeting at Blair House offered the American people and their elected representatives a rare opportunity to explore different health reform proposals in extraordinary depth.

In 2003, Ron Suskind wrote a famous article about the Bush administration's lack of interest in, or knowledge of, domestic policy. The article centered on the influence of Karl Rove and his staff:

The White House on Tuesday released a letter from President Obama to the congressional leadership of both parties. In it, Obama urges them to incorporate a handful of Republican ideas into health care reform and then get on with passing a comprehensive bill, even if the Republicans still refuse to support it.

Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt devotes most of his column today to showing that President Obama cares a lot about covering the uninsured. He then lands at the conclusion that this goes to show Obama doesn't really care about controlling costs:

Newt Gingrich, speaking at CPAC, declared:

The political media remains obsessed with the propriety of using budget reconciliation to pass health care reform. Unfortunately, many of them continue to not understand what they're talking about. Let me explain again. Last year, some Democrats considered using the reconciliation process – an expedited procedure that can't be filibustered -- to pass health care reform.

In a superb speech at the Brookings Institution this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called on the United States—elected representatives and average citizens alike—to “rededicate ourselves to the painful, unglamorous, and indispensible work of fiscal discipline.” Drawing on the studies of leading economists and historians, he warned that failing to do so would be committing ourselves to national decline. What is happening in Greece, he declared, can happen here: “If we don’t change course, it will happen here.”

“Suppose truth is a woman,” a philosopher wondered. “What then? The direct approach may not be the best approach to win her favor.” I don’t seek relationship advice from Friedrich Nietzche. Watching yesterday's bipartisan health summit, I can see his point.

This post may not hold a lot of interest to readers who aren't Ross Douthat, but what the heck, it's only the internet:

Ross Douthat has a generally decent reply to something I wrote a few days ago, pointing out the ways that highbrow and lowbrow conservative attacks have effectively worked in tandem:

Who won? It's the exact same question people asked in 2008, after each of the presidential debates. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. What's "winning"--scoring more debate points, making fewer gaffes, or simply appealing to more voters? And aren't all those judgments pretty subjective anyway?

But if Thursday's event didn't produce a winner, it was clarifying.