Today, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the existing Senate and House bills will NOT be scrapped, and will instead be a "starting point" for the Summit.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/16/sebelius.health.care/
President Obama plans to use the already-passed House and Senate bills as a starting point for next week's health care summit with Republican leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday.
The problem with this attitude is that it assumes we all agree that a big government, high-cost solution is the way to go, and we don't all agree on that. So they're wanting to start with a built-in advantage for liberal ideas, and want the Republicans to go along with it.
Indeed, rank-and-file Congressional Democrats don't see any reason to abandon the idea of shoving the bill through using reconciliation... they see no conflict with that and the idea of a "bipartisan summit."
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/55_90/news/43258-1.html
Senate Democrats say they see no need to abandon the idea of using reconciliation to pass health care reform this year just because President Barack Obama has scheduled a bipartisan summit next week to try to break the impasse on Capitol Hill.
It figures, I guess. They don't seem to understand that a "bipartisan bill" requires that you actually let the other side have a say in some things. And right now they don't. STARTING with the existing bills is perpetuating the existing problems with the legislation and exacerbating the partisan nature of it.
The fact remains that the American people do not WANT the bill that PresBo wants to use as a "starting point." In fact, the bill only has 38.1% supporting it with 52.9% opposing it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html
Of course, PresBo seems to think that if he can just tell us ONE MORE TIME how great his bill is, we'll suddenly have en epiphany, see the light, and support his bill. I don't think it'll happen like that.
http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/15/maybe-if-the-white-house-just
The White House has announced that it will publish a health care reform proposal in advance of the forthcoming bipartisan health care summit. Reports suggest that it will be a House/Senate compromise plan rather than a new White House proposal. The idea, as far as I can tell, is to give Democratic leadership in Congress a mild push to finalize a compromise (and, presumably, a passage strategy to go along with it) and to expose Republicans as having no ideas—or, even better, as standing for wildly unpopular ideas.
As political messaging ploys go, this is probably savvy enough, but I'm not convinced it will have much effect on the pushing a bill toward passage. For one thing, it assumes (or hopes, anyway) that reiterating, yet again, all the awesome benefits of the Democratic plan will somehow cause the public to start liking it. It's the political version of finding out that someone doesn't speak your language and responding by repeating what you just said, only slower and louder. It's also an assumption that just doesn't hold up very well under scrutiny. And as I've said before, I'm not convinced that a bipartisan health care summit that results in continued disagreement and greater partisan animosity is going to do much to soothe a public looking for bipartisan agreement. Sure, Republicans might not look good at the end of the summit, but is that enough to turn the debate around?
So I will repeat my advice for Republicans. Send a single representative to present PresBo with some ideas to incorporate into his bill. This representative should also deliver a statement to the effect that passing the current Senate bill would constitute a rejection of bipartisanship by the Democrats and will worsen the relationship between the parties. Scrapping the current bills is the absolutely mandatory first step towards reaching a bipartisanship agreement. That should be non-negotiable.
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