Partisan politics threatens to kill health care reform

Republicans in Congress have adopted a cynical strategy to kill President Barack Obama’s health care reform initiative: Demonize the president’s plan, but don’t develop one of our own. That’s politics at its worst.

The American people, by a wide margin, have said they want to see the health care system in this country reformed so costs are brought under control. Obama has taken it several steps further, arguing that people should not be denied health insurance coverage because of an existing health condition, should not lose coverage if they change jobs, and should have choices in their coverage and their doctors. The poor would get subsidies to buy insurance.

Republicans have jumped on the Congressional Budget Office’s $1.5 trillion, 10-year price tag of the House bill that aims to meet the president’s goals.

But the irony of such cost consciousness on the part of the Republican is palpable.

In 2003, the GOP dominated Congress rammed through a Medicare prescription-drug bill that carried a $511 billion price tag — $116 billion more than the estimate lawmakers had been given. The American people are footing the bill.

And even though the administration of President George W. Bush admitted that the $395 billion price tag was on the low side, Congress never demanded an accounting of what occurred to cause the cost of the bill to skyrocket.

But now, Republicans have become the paragon of fiscal responsibility.

They aren’t fooling anyone. They know that health care reform isn’t what their big money supporters — insurance companies, drug providers and the like — want. They also know that by pounding away at the $1.5 trillion price tag of the House health care reform bill, they will scare the American people.

No deficit spending

Never mind that President Obama has said that any plan must pay for itself and must not add to the budget deficit.

But before people give Republicans a pass on this important issue, they should ask this question: Where’s your plan?

And if there isn’t one presented, the conclusion that must be drawn is that politics is the end game.

It’s already having an effect. Conservative Democrats on Capitol Hill are wavering because of the cost and the opposition that’s building against the issue. Late last week, the president conceded his August deadline for a bill to be signed into law will not be met.

While we agree with him that the current health care system, with its skyrocketing costs, cannot be sustained — just ask the small businessmen and women who provide health insurance to their employees as a benefit — rushing to reform it is the wrong strategy. It is true that curbing health care costs is essential to the economic recovery of the nation, but haste could make waste — by the Republicans.

Indeed, by giving Democrats in Congress a chance deal with all the arguments the advocates of the status quo have put forth, Obama would be providing members of his party with the political cover they need.

Taking time to develop a perfect bill would also enable the president to continue is national campaign for health care reform.

He should clearly show why the current system is broken and how the reforms he is proposing will ultimately result in a healthier America — medically and economically.