The New Health Dialogue

Here's a sampling of some of the opinions and editorials we've seen over the last few days.

In a weekend when Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi, part of the so-called Gang of Six bipartisan negotiators in Senate Finance, bashed Democratic-backed health plans in the GOP's weekly radio address, The New York Times published an editorial saying that Democrats may have no choice except for a "go-it-alone" strategy:

We say this with considerable regret because a bipartisan compromise would be the surest way to achieve comprehensive reforms with broad public support. But the ideological split between the parties is too wide -- and the animosities too deep -- for that to be possible.

In recent weeks, it has become inescapably clear that Republicans are unlikely to vote for substantial reform this year. Many seem bent on scuttling President Obama's signature domestic issue no matter the cost. As Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, so infamously put it: "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."...

Mr. Obama should know from sad experience the pitfalls of seeking bipartisan cooperation from a Republican Party that has sloughed off most of its moderates and is dominated by its right wing. His stimulus package was supported by no Republicans in the House and only three Republicans in the Senate, so-called moderates whose support was won by shrinking the package below the size at which it would have done the most good.

The Times ran a separate Katharine Seelye article on DeMint describing a meeting with voters and noting that "Mr. DeMint did little to correct their misimpressions about health care legislation but rather reinforced their worst fears.

Democratic pollster Glenn Garin, picking up on all the talk about bipartisanship dying with the late Sen. Kennedy, said that bipartisanship doesn't require a Kennedy. It requires a Republican equally interested in striking a deal.

The truth is that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, with the support of the White House, has worked hard for months to reach consensus with Sens. Chuck Grassley, Olympia Snowe and Mike Enzi on a health-reform bill -- incurring, for his trouble, more than a little heat from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But so far, the Republicans haven't had the will, courage or independence to strike a deal. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been doing his best to end the negotiations, apparently agreeing with Jim DeMint's political assessment that health care could be President Obama's Waterloo. And now Chuck Grassley says he could sign only a compromise that a majority of the GOP caucus would support.

The problem is not that there is no Ted Kennedy among the Democrats who understands the art of compromise. The problem is that there is no Republican willing to provide, for health reform, the kind of bold leadership that Kennedy provided to help pass controversial legislation when George W. Bush was president.

Former Senate Republican leader Bob Dole dishes out some advice for President Obama

If I were a White House adviser, I would suggest that the day Congress reconvenes, President Obama's version of reform should be introduced by Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. Health-care reform is the vital issue of our time, and Obama should be out front with his specific plan on this make-or-break issue...

Obama's approval numbers would jump 10 points if Americans knew he was fully in charge. A tactical move of introducing his own plan would also stir more Republicans to become active for reform in critical areas. Right now the president's biggest problem is with congressional Democrats, who are split and searching for a way out of the medical wilderness.

The Washington Post, where the editorial page in the past has worried aloud about the cost of reform and the deficit, came out strongly for a comprehensive (paid-for) plan, saying scaled-back versions don't do the job.

The interconnectedness of the health-care system makes a piecemeal fix more difficult than a comprehensive one. It would fall short of a cure for two major ailments of the current system: Too many people lack health insurance, and for too many others it is unreliable and, increasingly, unaffordable.

....You give up a lot if you lose comprehensiveness. So it's worth another stab at a comprehensive approach -- but one that really controls costs over time.

Along simliar lines, PPI's Will Marshall writes that critics who say the deep deficit precludes health care:

...have it exactly backwards. The federal government's ballooning debts endanger U.S. prosperity, but they are no reason to postpone health care reform. On the contrary, as President Obama has emphasized, getting medical costs under control is a prerequisite for restoring fiscal responsibility in Washington.

And since we started in the heartland, let's end there too, with an editorial from the Billings Gazette, in Enzi's home state. The paper wrote an editorial about sticking to the facts -- and did a nice job of pointing out the "outrageous, false claims" made by enemies of reform.