Honest Democrats in Congress

by Lori Spindler

If we are ever to achieve any health care reform that will actually have a positive impact on our society it will require that we have honest Democrats in Congress. Not just any honest Democrats, but enough of them and in the right places that they can use their honesty to guide the debate. The way that you will be able to recognize a Democrat with the honesty to help the process is that he will reject the assertion of President Obama that Republicans only want to maintain the status quo.

An honest Democrat would have to recognize and admit that Republicans have been publicly acknowledging for years that we need health care reform. An honest Democrat would work from a position that understands that believing that the proposals they currently don’t have time to read are actually worse than the status quo (as Republicans generally do) is not the same as believing that the status quo is acceptable (as Republicans generally don’t). Using the scare tactic that doing nothing will make the cost of health care double within ten years without acknowledging that a poor solution could be crafted in a way that makes the cost triple within nine years is not honest. Such honest Democrats would be willing and able to actually have a dialog with Republicans and see if they have anything of value to offer on this issue.

[quote]Without such honest Democratic leadership there is no chance of actually finding a solution on this issue. The only thing that can happen is that due to their large majorities, Democrats have the potential of pushing through a partisan agenda that undoubtedly does not consider all the factors and ramifications that are important to the issue.

I will not suggest that there are no honest Democrats in Congress, I have no doubt that there are some, but they are not the ones dominating the debate right now – and President Obama is not being honest when he claims that Republicans only want the status quo. Are such honest Democrats to be found among the Blue Dogs who also have concerns about this current legislative proposal? Possibly, but I think there are some Democrats outside that group who could also be honest if they would step up to the microphone and say that this issue is too important to be used for political gamesmanship.

I will also not pretend that Republicans are not playing any political games with this issue, but what else can they do until they find honest Democrats who are willing to put all ideas on the table and sift through to find a solution – like the engineers at NASA trying to save Apollo 13. Until that happens we have little chance of being able to identify which Republicans are honest and which are just playing politics. Right now the ball is in the Democrats’ court. Who’s going to take the health care issue seriously among the Democrats by being honest about “the other side of the aisle?”