In the wake of the special election...

...in Massachusetts, some people are calling for Congress to just drop health care reform altogether. Consider this:

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, by 2019 there will be 54 million people in the United States without health insurance (PDF). The chief actuary of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, says it will be even worse: 57 million people without insurance (PDF).

In 2017, just seven years from now, the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund will be exhausted. Empty. Dried up. Done.

Total national expenditures on health care will continue to soar, according to the chief actuary, to $4.7 trillion in 2019 from $2.6 trillion today.

The average cost of an employer-sponsored family health insurance policy will rise to $20,300 in 2019, or about $10,000 more than today, consuming an ever growing portion of family income and continuing to put downward pressure on wages (PDF).

The status quo is clearly unsustainable.

While the nihilist Republicans in Congress would have us do nothing, the president yesterday said, “This is our best chance to do it. We can’t keep on putting this off.”

He's right.