AP gets the date, in full why oh why can't we have a better press corps mode:

Under the Democratic bills, federal tax credits to help make health insurance affordable for millions of low- and middle-income households won't start flowing until 2013 — after the next presidential election. [Quelle surprise!] But Medicare cuts and a sizable chunk of the tax increases to pay for the overhaul kick in immediately. [Quelle surprise!]

The eat-your-vegetables-first approach is causing heartburn for some Democrats. Three years is a long time to wait for dessert...

Oh, health care is dessert? I guess to the press, who have insurance, it is!

... and opponents could capitalize on misgivings about the complex legislation to undo what would be a signature achievement for Obama.

Obama administration officials and Democratic lawmakers say the reason for the three-year wait is the time it's going to take to set up insurance marketplaces, write consumer protection rules and reconfigure the bureaucracy to carry out the legislation. It took President George W. Bush's administration two years to phase in the Medicare prescription benefit, a more modest undertaking.

Right, and it took LBJ only 1 year to implement Medicare -- before computers! Why?

Because Medicare is single payer for over-65s, that's why. Single payer is simple! Single payer's administrative simplicity is not just why it's easy to implement, it's why Versailles, in not considering it, left $350 billion a year on the table to be scooped up by health insurance parasites!

Incidentally, that the Democrat's "health" "insurance" "reform" bill is more complicated than Medicare Part D is not a good sign. In many forms of engineering, complexity is the enemy of quality. I suspect that the same will be true here. Fortunately, "progressives" will have the poor, the young, and who can't get insurance now because of pre-existing conditions to experiment on! So I'm sure everything will turn out for the best.