Not an unmitigated disaster--especially considering this has been coming down the pipe for some time. And, I should add, things could get much worse if the House also doesn't vote on a bill before adjourning.

But now that it's official, the concerns reformers have had all along about going into August recess without floor votes on legislation will leave the realm of supposition and begin to truly materialize. Assuming the Senate Finance Committee approves legislation before adjourning, Senate leaders will spend the summer months finalizing a piece of legislation that members won't see until they return. In the meantime, they'll have few answers for their constituents about the prospects for, and specifics of reform, who will regard the situation as a poor harbinger.

To those constituents, the very concept of "reform" will become hopelessly entangled with reports of procedural wrangling and ugly Washington politics--and polls will reflect that linkage. The popularity of reform as a general proposition will begin to sink.

Which on its own might not be so bad--the concept of reform is still broadly popular. But it's not a stand alone problem. Interest groups, both pro- and anti-reform, will hammer the usual members--the fence sitters who, rightly or wrongly, will determine the ultimate fate of the country's health care system--with increasingly vicious ad campaigns. The ads themselves will probably skew anti-reform--those groups have more money to spend, and, probably, more to lose. But in addition to the toll they take on the senators and congressmen themselves, they'll take a toll on voters, too, who will further lose their appetite for bold measures.

All the Sturm und Drang will ultimately emerge from the fact that legislators haven't yet voted, and are therefore, theoretically, swayable. Which means they'll be inundated not just by headlines warning of sinking poll numbers, and ominous TV spots, but by lobbyists, who will use the weeks-long hiatus to pressure key legislators to oppose key aspects of the package--and maybe the whole package itself.

In other words, just about all roads point in unfriendly directions. Which isn't to say reform is dead. There are still a lot of Democrats, and even the conservative among them can't be entirely deaf to the fallout they'd face if they failed to pass something. But this is what passing bills in both chambers of Congress was meant to avoid. But now--at least to some extent--it's all but inevitable.