Breaching the Summit

It is the beginning of the fiscal year for my health insurance company. I can tell because I received my new insurance card. Normally I don’t pay much attention. There have been adjustments in my coverage in the past. This year, however, my co-pay went up fourty-two percent. I suppose it is coincidental that the Health Care Summit is this week also. Somehow it seemed significant enough to draw my attention to the news coverage of this event. Watching CNN, Fox News and MSNBC I can understand why it was called “political theater”. So I turned to the commentary of people that have made a career of observing these events and maybe gain some clarity.

The Christian Science Monitor posted two opinions regarding the President’s showing at the summit. The Monitor’s Editorial Board calls it Obama’s “Clinton moment”. The event was intended to bring Democrats and Republicans together and find a compromise. They feel Obama was successful in deflecting Republican criticism of the program as government take over and diffused their objection of the $1 trillion cost by showing how in ten years the deficit will be reduced by that much according to their plan. Mark Greenbaum, an attorney and freelance writer at the Monitor, also characterized Obama’s performance as successful. This said however, neither feel it will make a difference on it’s own. Though they seem to support the President’s opinion, they say it is a little too late.

The opinion of The Christian Science Monitor and Mark Greembaum both seek to move past the TV drama and find the underlying thread. They target readers who understand the issue yet strive to navigate the miasma of entrenched political opinion. I have to agree with both commentaries. The public is worried about health care costs but they are also inured to the debate and more concerned about just keeping their jobs. With politicians in both parties looking to keep their jobs too, both articles state it is time to work on compromise, take ownership of the problem and just get it done. Though I would love to see our nation’s leaders strive to do what is best for everyone. After all having a healthy population benefits each person in that population...let’s at least move towards a common ground.