HEALTH CARE SUMMIT TESTY EXCHANGES

By Sharon Hughes
March 7, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

Can I ask you a question? Did anyone really think that President Obama's "Bipartisan Health Care Summit" would be a game changer?

While pundits of the old media and new logged in their opinions and analysis of the purpose and outcome of the summit, the only real thing that I think was beneficial in this staged event, was to observe the testy exchanges between some members of Congress and the President. It helped to further define the line that divides on this issue.

While few Americans actually watched the 7 hour televised summit, the support of the White House and Congressional health care proposals continues to diminish. Now 56% of Americans oppose Obama’s proposal.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... _56_oppose

And for the record, according to Rasmussen, http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... ex_history
the President’s approval rating has dropped from 65% on January 21, 2009, Inauguration Day, to 46% on March 4, 2010. The percentage of those who strongly disapprove has increased from 16% to 41% for the same period. And the health care summit did virtually zero to change these numbers.

And yet as the Wall Street Journal points out, Congress and the President is planning on moving forward with their bills, even using the 'reconciliation' process to have their way. Here's the plan, "House Democrats would pass a series of 'fixes' to the Senate bill. The Senate would then pass the House reconciliation bill, sending amendments to President Obama to a bill... The House would then retroactively pass the Senate bill as is. So by using the "reconciliation" process, the Senate will only need 51 votes to pass their socialized healthcare bill."

But let’s not get too distracted over the ‘reconciliation’ tactic because as Phil Kerpen, President for policy at Americans for Prosperity, points out, “
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/03/ ... ight-vote/ …as outrageous as reconciliation is, ultimately it’s a distraction, and free-market activists who focus on it may miss the real fight in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether or not the Senate passes changes to its health care bill via reconciliation. That’s because the reconciliation process cannot even begin until after the House passes the Senate bill exactly as it passed the Senate on Christmas Eve. That means it must pass with the abortion language already rejected by Rep. Bart Stupak and others still intact. It also must pass with the outrageous pork barrel spending deals cut for Nebraska, Louisiana, Connecticut, and others.â€