WE WELCOME THE DECISION by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to buck President Obama and delay Senate action on health care reform legislation until after lawmakers return to Capitol Hill in September.

President Obama had wanted Congress to pass reform bills before the August recess. But that arbitrary deadline, to put it bluntly, was dead wrong.

And President Obama ought to have known better, because bills of this size and importance deserve the utmost scrutiny. These bills have not gotten that so far from elected officials.

Consider this: The House Ways and Means Committee earlier this month passed a version of reform legislation after just one day of debate.

Can the chairman of that committee honestly say that was enough time for panel members and their staffs to understand and be aware of every provision tucked into that more than 1,000-page bill?

Of course it wasn’t, nor was it enough time for the public to understand it. In the short time we’ve had to dig into the measure, we’ve discovered, as we report on page 1, several disturbing provisions, including one that could take away the ability of employers to design and offer health care plans that best meet their needs and those of their employees.


We don’t know how much time Congress and the administration need to get it right on health care reform, but we know it is more than a couple of weeks.

President Obama and his health care reform allies in Congress would be wise now to stay away from artificial and unrealistic deadlines and take the time necessary to get it right.