A Few Comments On The Healthcare Reform Summit

I have spent the morning watching the bipartisan healthcare summit.  I seems to me that the Democrats are trying to say that there is agreement on the majority of healthcare issues their bill will solve, so the Republicans should pass the Democrat bill.  There may be agreement on the problems, but there is absolutely no agreement on the solutions.  That is becoming very obvious.  There were a lot of lies in what I heard.  As Harry Reid said that the Democrats had no intention of using the reconcilliation process, Politico reported on the Democrat strategy to pass this bill. 

According to Politico:

A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to “give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.”

Democrats plan to begin rhetorical, and perhaps legislative, steps toward the Democrats-only, or reconciliation, process early next week, the strategists said.

This does not sound as if the meeting is being held in good faith.

There is also reporting on the meeting by Real Clear Politics.  This is the link at Real Clear Politics to the President explaining that the reason that the Democrats have more speaking time at the healthcare reform summit–“I don’t count my time because I’m the President.”  This is the link at Real Clear Politics to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying “Health reform will create 400,000 jobs ‘almost immediately.'”  Somehow I expect those jobs will be union jobs in the government.

The general problem with this healthcare summit for the Democrats is that the Republicans are quoting parts of the approximately 2,200 page bill back to the Democrats who are not happy about having to defend their bill.

I know the stated purpose of this meeting was to bring to people together.  In practice, it is only highlighting the differences between the Republican and Democrat ideas on healthcare reform.  Generally speaking, the Democrat party wants healthcare taken over by the government and the Republicans want the free market to be used to correct some of the more serious problems.  The Republicans are looking for small practical steps to solve rising healthcare insurance costs, and the Democrats are looking for a government takeover of the entire healthcare industry.

Frankly, the videotapes of this meeting could be marketed as a cure for insomnia.