Polarization

I hate the polarization of our politics, especially in Congress.
Consider: Each party stakes out a position ahead of time. They refuse to retreat. Consider health care. The Democrats produced a 2000 page bill, which many at first admitted they had not read. Why such a comprehensive bill anyway. Why not take each section and approach it by itself. Then they should negotiate publicly with C-span (or a kid with a cell cam) putting it online.

Politically, I'm a pragmatist. I want to see people sit down, define problems, develop possible solutions, then try to fix them. Defining the problem should be the hardest part. For example, many Republicans will deny that a health care problem exists. If they admit one, it is much smaller. But even if so, why would not the Democrats sit down with them and fix that part of it. It's fascinating to me that the existing Medicare is predicted by some authorities to go bankrupt in a few years. Why not determine whether that's true, then fix that before adding on expenses.

Certainly there are people lacking easy access to health care. It seems to me that using the existing healthcare structure and carefully expanding it to cover certain areas would reduce bureaucracy, which I personally hate. But only after solving the funding for existing medicare.

Pragmatism, people, practicality! In health care and all things.