Grace-Marie Turner on FOX Business

Vapor Agreement

So the latest bright idea from the closed room meetings on Capitol Hill ... expand government-run health plans. Now that's creative! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that 10 Democratic senators met for a day and came up with this brilliant idea in their plans to transform one-sixth of our economy. But it is becoming clear that they produced nothing more than a vapor agreement and that the leadership is still struggling to get to 60 votes.

Trying Times

Things are getting more, not less, difficult for Democrats as they try to meet their deadline of getting a health reform bill through the Senate before Christmas and to the president by the end of January. For example, a coalition representing more than 240,000 physicians and surgeons, including the powerful California Medical Association, sent a letter to Sen. Reid on Tuesday saying they oppose his bill. They oppose government intrusion into medical decision-making such as creation of a non-elected Medicare board with the authority to make law without congressional action, penalties on doctors if they don't participate in a new federal quality reporting program, and have six other major complaints.

Duplicity and Deceit

The 2,074-page health reform bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled Wednesday is a maze of complexity and duplicity. It would spend $848 billion over 10 years to provide new subsidies for health coverage, increase taxes by $486 billion, and allegedly cut spending by $491 billion. All the while, it pretends to use this massive government expansion to cut the deficit.

Bold, but Desperate

Speaker Pelosi and President Obama are as bold as they are desperate in forcing the House to vote this weekend on their massive health reform plan. The president is expected to give a full endorsement to the House bill, despite the fact that it clearly violates major campaign promises he has made to the American people about reducing health costs, not adding to the deficit, no middle class taxes, and no loss of current coverage, among other pledges.

Breaking Promises

How can President Obama possibly endorse the bill that Speaker Pelosi unveiled to such great fanfare on Thursday? The House bill breaks major promises he has made to the American people about his goals for health reform. To name just a few...Cost: The president has assured us that health reform would lower health costs. But the House bill would bend the federal cost curve UP, not down, according to the Congressional Budget Office's preliminary analysis.

The Fix Is Not In

Humpty Dumpty Health Reform?