Summit with a limited view
“I hope this will not just be theater,” pronounced President Barack Obama at one point during last week’s health-care summit with congressional Democrats and Republicans. “I hope it’s an opportunity to clarify our positions.”
Unfortunately, the summit was obviously theater. It was an exercise intended not to produce compromises or changes to the hopelessly flawed health-care legislation before Congress, but instead an opportunity for the Democrats and the Republicans to score political points against each other. Both sides surely did score points, but who knows who came out on top in a debate-scoring sense.
Before the summit ever started, it was obvious that Republicans were not going to suddenly cave in and be won over by the overall Obamacare package, and that the Democratic leadership was going to press on with their plans regardless of public opinion or the strong possibility that the legislation may not pass.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared during the summit that “more than 60 percent of Republicans, Democrats and independents want us to reform the way health care works.”
That may be true, but his posturing demonstrates an incredible detachment from the reality of how the public has reacted to the specific legislation the Democrats are pursuing.
A CNN poll last week found that only 25 percent of respondents said Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by the House and Senate, and 48 percent said lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill. Poll after poll has shown minority support for the legislation that has passed, no matter how much President Obama and his allies try to explain its benefits.
Our sense is that at the most basic level, most Americans want efficient, effective reforms but they do not want a vast new entitlement program, especially knowing how the federal government has mismanaged programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Maybe such an effort would bring about reforms, but most Americans know it would also involve a bigger government, more spending and more taxes to cover the spending. It also would create a decade of uncertainty for businesses that could hinder job growth at a time when jobs are vital.
But recent news reports indicate that the Democrats will revive their efforts to pass the existing legislation this week, despite the potential for failure. Many moderate Democrats know that supporting it will amount to political suicide, and the health-care legislation that’s already cleared the House passed by a mere five votes.
It can’t be emphasized enough that never before has such an expansive, expensive and profoundly impacting proposal been passed without majority public support and some bipartisan buy-in. Congress and the president need to stop talking to (or past) each other and start listening to the people.