What are they thinking?

I'm already tired of the endless picking at healthcare reform. Can't they just get it done already?
The latest buzz is that--big surprise--it's going to cost money, $1.6 trillion dollars over 10 years.
Of course that sounds like a lot. Any recurring expense over 10 years sounds like way more than it seems on a year-by-year basis. Unless my math is wrong, the annual number is more like $160 billion. Now that's way over my budget, but Congress spends that much before lunch.
So why are we letting "them" (whoever they are) scare the bejesus out of everybody by talking in the trillions of dollars and tens of years. And eveybody knows that ten-year predictions are inaccurate because so much changes in such a long timespan.
And while I'm at it, I've got another bone to pick with the way this is being discussed. How come nobody's talking about the boost to the economy when people get healthier because they can go to the doctor when they're sick instead of waiting until they're really sick.
They're all happy to tell us the latest statistic about what the common cold or poison ivy or the flu costs business every year, but they can't add better health into the health care discussion?
I don't get it.