Thursday, February 25, 2010

HEALTH CARE SUMMIT ISSUES

I was watching the beginning of President Obama's health care summit this morning. The usual courtesies and talking points were made in the opening remarks. Still, it's clear that the problems that exist are as much political as they are ideological. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, from The Rachel Maddow Show, points out a few of these issues.

First, Democrats in Congress have become increasingly frustrated with the Republican's "just say no" position on health care. Congressman Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) comments on why he believes they're saying no illustrates this frustration. In this RMS segment he tells Republicans on the House floor that they've become little more than a "wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry ...". The follow-up exchange is a classic.




While the Republicans might not be wholly owned by the insurance industry in a legal sense, when you do their bidding like they've been doing it's hard to tell the difference.

Then Rachel Maddow takes a look at one of the outright lies of the Republican party when it comes to "reconciliation" and the public option (the effort to get a simple 51 majority vote) ...




This should be embarrassing for those who seek to confuse the reconciliation issue, but it's not. The fact that it isn't says much about where the Republican Party is politically on the health care debate. Simply put, they're not serious (keep in mind they had almost the entire Bush administration to do something on this issue). For transcripts and more, click here.

Either way you cut it, there's a wide gap between ideas and tactics that won't be resolved today.

Today's health care summit will probably end with Republicans saying the Democrats and/or the President don't listen, or that President Obama lectured them. If this happens I think it's time for the President to embrace and push for using reconciliation (used, as Barbara Boxer pointed out, 16 times by Republicans since 1980) to get the public option and/or health care reform.

The policy reasons policy reasons why I support reform can be found here and here. These are the issues you bring into the office if you want to win the debate on points. The political reasons why I support the reforms proposed by the Democrats can be found here. These are the issues you discuss if you want to drag out debate and torture your friends (and still win).

- Mark

Addendum: You can watch the Health Care Summit here and here. Interestingly, the White House feed is about 1 second behind the Youtube feed.

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