THE CRUX OF THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE SUMMARIZED IN THE JULY 24 NEWS HOUR INTERVIEW WITH DAVID BROOKS

David Brooks : Five out of six people in the country have health coverage. Three out of four of them, according to most polls and pollsters I talk to, are satisfied. They're not thrilled with it, but they're satisfied with it. And that's where the president and the case has to be made in the country, that, look, this is in the national interest.

But then the president has got a substantive problem, which is, for the majority who have health care and are basically satisfied with it, their main concern is the increasing costs. And so people have a legitimate question: How is it we're going to cut my costs by creating a new trillion-dollar entitlement? That's a legitimate question which the president didn't really answer. How are we going to control costs without anybody sacrificing anything?

It's something that's bigger than me personally. But at the same time, I'm not going to be punished and I'm not going to come out of this worse. But, you know, I think that's where the job remains to be done.

JIM LEHRER: Do they buy the case that he also makes, is that it's essential to the economy, as well as to health care and all the other things, per se? There's a bigger picture that has to do with the economy?

DAVID BROOKS: I was struck over the past couple of years that people really feel their wages are being squeezed. Now, why are wages being squeezed? It's not because total compensation is being squeezed. It's because compensation is going to pay for health care instead of salary.

And it's not unanimous, but most of them say this does not fundamentally alter the fee-for-service incentives that you need to reduce, to bend that curve, and they haven't done that yet. "There's a reason why almost every employer and small business group is opposed to the Democrats' government takeover of health care, and that's because it would impose new job-killing taxes during a recession," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. "No report can change that."

And in the weekly GOP address, Rep. Cathy McMorris of Washington state, vice chair of the House Republican Conference, said, "America's small businesses will pay a high price." Citing a study by the National Federation of Independent Business, she said Democratic-written proposals would destroy a million more jobs than the economy has already lost.

She called the Democratic efforts "a prescription for disaster – one that will put Washington bureaucrats in charge of your family's personal medical decision."


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