Devildawg15's blog: "Obamacare Not Dead Yet"

     Although it's on life-support, Obamacare is not dead. There are some who still plan to
"forge forward and pass [it] by any means necessary."

     And as President Obama prepares his State of the Union address for tonight (the speech starts at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time), Ed Feulner provides his own assessment of the current state of our union, including health care. He describes the Left's "signature health care reform initiative [as] a colossal missed opportunity."

     Shortly after Brown's victory, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) admitted that she doesn't have enough votes to pass the Senate bill by a simple majority. Yet the Left's solution, Politico reports, is "giving a sweeping reform bill one more try," even as some Democrats favor a scaled-back proposal.

     Meanwhile, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) has proposed legislation that would eliminate  the filibuster, which requires 60 Senators to agree to end debate before a vote can occur. Members of both parties have used this procedural hurdle to slow or block Senate action, including most notably the health care legislation.

But these "solutions" don't address the core concerns the American
people have with Obamacare.

     The President and Congress are facing a fork in the road. Conservatives should take advantage of this temporary lull to represent the voice of real, bipartisan reform. These
principled reforms would include:

*  Treat All Insurance the Same. The same tax breaks given to
employer-provided health coverage should be applied to insurance
plans purchased by individuals. Ideally, Congress would
implement a system of universal tax credits.

*  Reform Existing Health Care Programs. Spending on current health
care programs like Medicare and Medicaid is growing out of
control. They are bankrupting our nation at an accelerating
pace, and expanding them, as the Left's health care bills
would do, would only exacerbate the financial burden on
taxpayers. Without significant reform, the aging of the U.S.
population and rapidly rising health care costs will
dramatically increase federal entitlement spending in coming
years.

*  Use Federalism, Not One-Size-Fits-All. States are the best place to test ideas. And because health care needs vary greatly across the country, reform should not entail a one-size fits all package. Congress should embrace a federal-state partnership that would preserve diversity in the states. The states' role would be to devise the best ways to achieve common national goals--for example, to establish a mechanism for portability.

    These reforms would help to address the many problems with our existing health care system without expanding the size and scope of the federal government. Plus, they would likely achieve bipartisan support because they honor the President's promises not to increase the deficit or raise taxes on the middle class. Both the current House and Senate bills break these promises.

     Conservatives should seize this opportunity to truly reform America's health care system -- and it really does need reform -- in a manner that respects individual liberty and boosts, not breaks, our economy.