Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Reform health care without GOP

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Reform health care without GOP
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 20, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1725208,CST-EDT-edit20b.article


Bipartisanship is overrated if it gets you nowhere. It's worth trying -- as the Obama administration has done in its push to reform the nation's health insurance system.

But if bipartisanship produces nothing, if it leaves us with the broken health-care system we have, we say it's time to move on.

Fortunately, that's what congressional Democrats and President Obama appear poised to do.

Faced with strident and at times destructive resistance from Republican leaders, particularly in the last few weeks, top Democrats are looking inward.

The Democrats can reform health care without significant Republican help, and we urge them to go for it.

With 47 million Americans uninsured, and health-care costs expected to account for one out of every four dollars in our national economy by 2025, reform cannot wait. That means forging ahead with Democrats, who represent a range of views on how best to improve our health-care system, including an element that rejects a publicly run health plan, or public option.

It also means rejecting any bill that, in the name of winning a few token Republican votes, is so watered down that it's not worth doing -- the likely outcome if Obama continues to seek the holy grail of bipartisanship.

True bipartisanship requires honest give and take, something Republicans have not done lately.

Their reaction to the White House's offer of nonprofit health cooperatives instead of the public option, which most Republicans reject? Their attacks simply shifted focus. And what to make of Sen. Charles Grassley, a top Republican working on a compromise bill, who initially failed to dispel myths about so-called "death panels," which some erroneously say the legisla-tion would create?

From there, it's not a big leap to say that key Republicans are more interested in killing this effort than in actually working together.

Bipartisanship, in theory, is a noble, important goal.

But, in practice, if it's simply an exercise in futility, we say skip it.