A Quick Reaction to the Health Care Summit

Being retired gives me the advantage of watching today's Health Care summit unadulterated by the sound-byte czars of the mainstream media.  After watching, I can only come to the following generalizations:

1. The Democrats want to find an affordable way to provide medical care to those who need it.
2. The Republicans want to use the deficit as a hammer to defeat any meaningful reforms, even though the Congressional Budget Office says that the proposed bill will reduce the deficit.  Their proposal only insures three million more people, still leaving tens of millions uninsured.
3. The Republicans spent a considerable amount of time discussing process, while the Democrats discussed desired outcomes.

The Republicans simply put their political goals ahead of those of the American people by denying the President any credit for the solution to this critical problem. So, given that the Republicans don't want to change the status quo, the Democrats need to go it alone while they have the majority.  Do they have the guts to do this?  (And since the Dems must go it alone, it would would be even better if they could include the Public Option to increase competition.  One can dream!)

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Other thoughts:

It's too bad that we did not have this depth of debate before we entered the ill-advised war with Iraq that has ballooned our deficit far more than any health care improvements will.

Kudos to neighboring congressman Rob Andrews for his constructive statement trying to find a compromise despite the obstreperous comments from the other side.