johnjordan@cis-partners.com
President Obama recently met with congressional leaders to discuss the future of the stalled Healthcare reform. Democrats state that both parties are close to a solution. However, Republicans have a different story. They say that the reform should be scrapped and started over again (2). From the meeting that took place, it seems that starting over is not the likely outcome. The president’s goal is to reach a compromising solution within one month to six weeks (1).
The Republican Party wants to decentralize the health care problem and make it a piece by piece fix (1). This is a large scale down from the Democrats’ plans. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee said, "Our country is too big, too complicated, too decentralized for Washington, a few of us here, just to write a few rules about remaking 17 percent of the economy all at once. (4)” Democrats stated that this way of going about the change has been tried, and has failed in the past.
The Democrats also have their own thoughts about the bill that was already proposed. According to the New York Times, Democrats:
“…are making the case that, in fact, comprehensive health legislation hasThis means that they would have to take into account what the Republicans have said, and would have to work to make certain compromises.
already passed both chambers, garnering a majority in the House and a
supermajority in the Senate. Under their tentative plan, the House would first
approve the bill that was adopted by the Senate on Christmas Eve. The Senate
majority leader, Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would also
draft a package of changes to be approved by both chambers in a separate
reconciliation bill. The reconciliation package would effectively smooth out
some of the differences between the House and Senate versions. The whole bundle
would be sent to Mr. Obama to sign into law. (3)”
There are some key points that both parties agree on. Some of these areas are: reforming insurance markets, increasing purchasing powers for small businesses and individuals, eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, and lowering health care costs (2). An ensuing debate is scheduled to discuss the problems that both sides are stating; one of these points of disagreement is publicly funded abortions (4).
Another item that Democrats and Republicans agree on is that the status-quo is not working, and they must come together in some sort of compromise to get a health care reform in place to help the American public. However, another year-long debate is not in the best interest for the people and hopefully something will get resolved sooner, rather than later.
This all should come to a conclusion this upcoming weekend with the vote for the Health Care bill taking place.
Sources:
1. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/02/obama_at_bipartisan_health_mee.html
2. http://www.dotmed.com/news/story/11854
3. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=health%20care&st=cse
4. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124105211
