What Constitutes a Proper Balance?

To The Editor:
The November elections did one good thing: returning some power balance to Congress to slow the audacious two-year Democratic-party juggernaut…a chance to dissemble unpopular legislation and regulatory initiatives.
What constitutes a proper balance? One party is still the major gatekeeper with a diminished senate majority and presidential veto. Would opposition-party control of both houses of Congress do it? Would that, plus veto override power, be going to far?
Single party control of two of the three branches of government is a bad thing in my opinion. We can’t depend on the Supreme Court to redress excesses. Though the upcoming insurance-mandate option will be a test case for the Supremes. Who knows what they’ll decide?
Amid all the battles to be fought over health care and other issues, the end game is still party power with policy and ideology serving as game-board. In this skirmish the nation and its citizens could become collateral damage unless we assert ourselves as we did on Nov. 2.
Healthcare: Repeal obviously won’t happen now. Dissembling it by funding actions might. If the Supreme Court shoots down the mandatory insurance provision, it could cripple the reform because only by forcing everyone to buy insurance will the reform have any chance at being financially viable.
Positive savings claims by Dems using CBO numbers are suspect since the CBO only uses the assumptions given it, the old garbage in garbage out problem. Current White House healthcare czar Nancy-Anne Deparle supports these. But common sense suggests when you cover 30 million more folks and increase insurers’ risk by coverage mandates, prices are going up not down. The administration’s villain du jour will be those “greedy private sector providers” not costly White House policies.
The GOP will attempt to financially deconstruct the healthcare bill, let’s hope they offer practical, economically viable options (like buying health care across state lines, tort reform and a nationwide, lower cost pool for high risk cases.) I still believe the goal of the Dems is to demonize the insurance industry and push for a total government run system (the public option.) We need marketplace, not more government “solutions” elbowing into our lives and limiting freedoms.
The election put a dent in single-party control, But a lot of damage has been done already. We should listen to the rhetoric of the State-of-the-Union Jan. 25, but we best watch what President Obama does.
ROBERT LOVELL
Court House