President Obama’s 7 ½ hour long summit in Blair House, Washington, ended as many critics had foreseen. There was no give on the side of the President whose advisors and supporting Democratic politicians dominated the February 25 “bipartisan” meeting, taking 340 minutes out of the 450 (7 ½ hrs.) for themselves, leaving the Republicans 110 minutes for the first chance ever, in a whole year, to bring up some of their proposals.

            Remember, during the last six months of 2009 the Congressional Democrats flatly refused to consider Republican suggestions or health proposals. Not a single one was considered worthy of notice. Then, having arrived at two separate and divergent Bills themselves, a House Bill with the Stupak amendment overruling efforts to overthrow previous restrictions on federal funding of abortion; and a Senate bill opening the flood gates for abortion and other anti-life measures such as wider approval for embryonic stem cell experimentation, the Obama partisans met in secret for two months, in January and February 2010, excluding Republicans and media from their deliberations. Then, three days before the “Thursday Summit,” on Monday morning (Feb. 22), they plunked a 2600 pages long bill, with a 323 pages Senate leader’s “amendment” on the table, and with soothing unctiousness invited a handful of critics to “bipartisan” and “open-minded” exchange of views. Who was Obama kidding? Well, the American people, of course!

            Stomping on any proposal other than those proposed by his own henchmen, he painted his Republican opponents meanwhile as “obscurantists” who supposedly consider health reform a plot hatched by Bolsheviks. Well, not Bolsheviks really. How about atheists and renegade Catholics whose bishops refuse to defend the holiness of the Eucharist by prohibiting them from receiving Holy Communion. There are sixteen of those renegades in the Senate alone and many more in the House of Representatives.

            At any rate, the die is cast. The President will ram his version through the Congress, any way he sees fit. Those on the fence will fall in line behind him. Opponents will struggle furiously. And independents such as Catholic bishops, will continue except for a few, to evade their practical responsibilities.

Who will win, remains to be seen.

In short, this deeply flawed bill:

1)                  solves few of the problems of the present legislation (no tort

            reform; no greater competition among insurance companies).

2)                  creates a huge entitlement added to the budget amounting to one

            sixth of the entire economy at this moment, but growing rapidly

            with an aging population seeking coverage and new features such

            as abortion, IVF, HIV-AIDS, et al being added.

3)         extended federal control