The “bipartisan health care summit”

President Obama has proposed an all-day televised bipartisan health care summit between Democrats and Republicans, to be held Feb 25th. Republicans are understandably cautious, concerned that this may just be political theater rather than a real discussion. Of course, if President Obama’s position is (as he seems to have indicated in recent interviews) that the discussion starts from the bills the Democrats crafted in the House and Senate without any Republican input, then the Republicans are right to be suspicious, and would be well within their rights to refuse to attend. A real bipartisan discussion would start fresh, with no preconditions. A discussion that starts with the Democrat’s whole wish list, and then perhaps grudgingly adds a few minor sops for Republicans, is hardly bipartisan.

I don’t expect much more than political posturing to come out of such a meeting, because at root the liberals and conservatives start with diametrically opposed philosophies. Liberals think more federal government involvement is good and necessary. Conservatives think more federal government involvement is bad and destructive. It’s hard to see much of a middle ground there. There are a series of peripheral health care issues on which both sides could agree, and perhaps the Democrats will finally come to their senses and craft a much smaller, less sweeping bill that incorporates those bipartisan agreements and can draw some Republican votes, but I doubt it. The liberals seem blinded by their ideology, and the conservatives smell victory at the polls this November. Neither side seems to have much incentive to compromise.

Personally I am not impressed with most government programs, as I have noted in previous posts. Some federal programs certainly work, but with a level of inefficiency and cost that would never survive in a free-market environment. Many federal programs don’t work, but get funded anyway year after year because they have Congressional and special interest supporters. The authors of the Constitution worried about the federal government getting too big and too strong, because they had seen the results of such governments in England and Europe. They would be, I am sure, absolutely appalled at the size and intrusiveness of our current federal government. And they would suspect, quite rightly, that that much power and money concentrated in the federal government would lead to massive abuses and corruption.

Of course, we will reduce the size of the federal budget and the scope of federal programs one way or another – the current level is simply not sustainable. If we aren’t smart enough to do it ourselves, natural economic forces in the world will do it for us, probably in a much less pleasant manner.