HEALTH CARE SUMMIT 2010: The Case Against Bi-partisanship

Only in the upside down world of Republican politics can you run for office on the platform that Washington is broken, that government is not the solution but the problem, and yet be elected and re-elected to be a part of the problem. In a telling interview on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Republican strategist John Feehery is practically forced to admit that his party has no desire whatsoever to use the government as a vehicle to pass health care reform. Instead they would rely on free market enterprise to exact the change to our broken system that is needed. As you will see below, Matthews rightfully points out that the free market is what has given us 50 million people without health care insurance.

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So why are Democrats capitulating to Republicans on passing health care reform when they’ve made it abundantly clear that it is antithetical to their brand name to even be associated with a government bill that interferes with free market economics? One can concede that they are really trying to pitch to the Blue Dog Democrats, the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, but that does not explain why such a concerted effort has been made to make this bill bi-partisan by making a third of it tax cuts, entertaining the idea of selling insurance across state lines, and tort reform.

Democrats need to accept the fact that Republicans want nothing to do with health care reform. They cannot make this any clearer. Yet this obsession for bi-partisanship has created a politically hospitable environment for Republicans to be obstructionists. Not only do they get to offer up amendments, watering down true reform with their own pet projects designed to play to their tax cut and corporate base, they also get to turn around and vote against reform, placating to their Tea Party anti-Obama coalition. While this is a huge disservice to the country, either way Republican politicians win.

With this idea of a health care summit and the presidential Q and A session recently held with Republicans, it appears that President Obama is trying to bring civility back into the public dialogue about reform. While that only plays to his and the country’s advantage, Republicans have a trump card, an anti-government base and a corporate alliance that will fund their bill killing incursion’s up front costs. I say up front because when this is over and the dust settles, the million dollars a day lobbying fee paid by the health care industry to block reform will end up being paid back to them by those very same Tea Party members who protested against change in the form of unreasonable premium heights. A prime example is the fact that Anthem Blue Cross of California just increased their rates by 39 percent. We can expect more of this if the government does not intervene to put the brakes on the out of control free market run of our health care system.

House Republican Leader John Boehner presented a very bold and audacious list of demands for Republican participation in a health care summit, including trashing the entire bill that has passed both chambers of congress and starting over in a bi-partisan fashion without reconciliation (and by bi-partisan he means incorporating all Republican ideas and nixing that of Democrats). Therefore summit or no summit, Democrats should abandon all hope of forging a bi-partisan bill and get on with reform already. What more proof do we need that they are not serious about working together to fix our broken health care system? Asking a Republican to implement a government reform of health care is like asking a tiger to change its stripes.

Politicians like to say that the American people want bi-partisanship in Washington, but if given the choice of both parties coming together to pass a lack lustered bill or nothing at all because they cannot come to an agreement, or one party passing a good health care reform bill without a single vote from the other side, then I think we know which is best for the country.