Health Care Summit 2010: Republicans You’re Excused!

Have you ever had a presentation to make in front of a crowd and were not prepared? Oh how you wished the meeting was cancelled. Remember how relieved you felt when you heard the buzz that the teacher was out and how jubilant you felt when you poked your head in the classroom to find a substitute sitting at the teacher’s desk? You felt like you dodged a bullet and did not have to make a fool of yourself in front of the entire class, exposing how unprepared you were! OK maybe it was just me.

With Anthem Blue Cross of California aiming to increase its rates by as much as thirty-nine percent despite record profits serving as a back drop, President Obama’s weekly address (see video below) makes the case for why the need for health care reform is all the more important. He therefore calls for bipartisan participation in the health care summit schedule for Thursday, February 25th, 2010, even releasing in advance the proposals for health care reform.

But House Republican Leader John Boehner, visibly not prepared to make his presentation in front of the entire country, has presented everything except a doctor’s note as an excuse not to attend the summit.

VAN SUSTEREN: The president said, you know, he was going to put everything on C-Span, so we can’t criticize him now for when he finally does put it on C-Span.

BOEHNER: Well, that’s fine, but I want to make sure that we’re going to have an honest conversation, you know, an honest, bipartisan conversation about how we can approach this. I don’t want to walk into some set-up. I don’t know who’s going to be there. I don’t know how big the room’s going to be. I don’t know — what the set-up is going to be.

Regarding the president’s proposal and transparency of a televised summit:

“The President has crippled the credibility of this week’s summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected,” Boehner said. “…This week’s summit clearly has all the makings of a Democratic infomercial for continuing on a partisan course that relies on more backroom deals and parliamentary tricks to circumvent the will of the American people and jam through a massive government takeover of health care.”

If the president’s proposals are that bad, would it not behoove the Minority Leader to attend the summit to make a case for reform? His complaint that the Democratic plans are not GOP enough is a very juvenile argument to make. Does he want the Democrats to do his homework for him? Is that not the Republican’s job, to present their own plan in front of the American people, making a stronger case as to why their ideas are superior? Or could it be, as I suspect, that Republicans really do not have a plan to present? Misleading health insurance lobbyists’ talking points and saying “No” to a Democratic proposal does not a health care plan make.

Perhaps Boehner is afraid that he and his party will yet again have another painfully embarrassing showing as was the case during debate with President Obama during the House Republican Retreat. Whatever the true reasons behind his trying to get out of attending the summit, they only amount to excuses. Excuses only satisfy those who make them. Therefore if Boehner wants to worm his way out of debating an important issue of our time because he has nothing to offer, excuse him and get on with passing a reform bill with or without Republican support. If there is one group of people who are not satisfied by all of his excuses, it’s the 50 million people in America who are uninsured or under insured.