For anyone who cares about medical costs - which is to say anyone who cares about the take-home pay of American families or about the budget deficit — President Obama’s health reform plan is a terribly mixed bag.

President Obama held a bipartisan meeting last month to try to find agreement on health care.

Economix: Health-Care Reform and the "�Doc Fix'

It does so much less than the ideal plan would do. It would not come close to eliminating Medicare’s long-term budget deficit. It would reduce that deficit only if a future Congress did not tinker with the various taxes and spending cuts scheduled to be phased in over the next decade.

On the other hand, the plan would make progress in all sorts of areas. Insurance exchanges...