We still have an opportunity to terminate the health care bills that have been passed in the Senate and the House.

Each have passed their version of health care. Now it is the responsibility of the House and the Senate to merge these two bills together making them one. Upon doing so, each will then vote upon this merged bill. Should it pass in the House and the Senate, it will then go to the president for his signature, thereby making it law.

Right now, it seems that the Democrats wish to circumvent the “traditional” way of doing that, which is appointing a formal House-Senate conference committee to reconcile the differing bills. The customary format for that is to have a committee chairman appointed from the majority party. In this case from the Democratic Party, and then have other senior lawmakers from both parties and houses participate in typically perfunctory public meetings to merge the two bills together. Usually, at the same time, other negotiations are occurring behind closed doors to facilitate this same ending.

It’s being said, however, in the case of this health care bill, that the final compromise talks will essentially now be a three-way negotiations involving only top Democrats in the House and Senate and the White House, a structure that gives unusual latitude to Sen. Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

If they do use this scenario and reach an agreement, then a vote will most likely be taken as soon as possible, so as to have it to the president by his proposed deadline — which is before his State of the Union address in early February.

All of this, of course, is being done without any input from the Republicans in our Senate or House of Representatives.

This seems to be the way that our Democratic representatives are heading. So much for the transparency promised by this administration throughout its campaigning. And, so much for the openness that our own Sen. Claire McCaskill promised throughout the summer as she attended the different town hall meetings around the state.

In addition to the transparency promised by Sen. McCaskill, she also promised that she would not vote on a health care bill unless it was deficit neutral. Well, folks, the health care bills passed by the Senate and the House are not truly deficit neutral. Each house has moved figures around, and made promises to cut Medicare expenses, cut Medicare payments to doctors as well as many other scenarios. And, according to the Congressional Budget Office, if (and this is the key word) each promise and plan falls in place, it perhaps could conceivably be considered deficit neutral. However, we know as citizens, that most everything that comes out of Congress does not work as it should. In this case, if only one of the many scenarios does not occur then the bill will definitely increase the deficit.

Now what makes this difficult for me to understand is that Sen. McCaskill said she would not vote for a bill unless it was deficit neutral.

She also said she would not vote to cut Medicare services to our seniors. Now simple logic tells me that since the senator voted for the bill, she is in favor of Medicare cuts — something she said she wasn’t for. You can’t have it both ways, senator.

Polls showed before the vote on Christmas Eve in the Senate, over 62 percent of the people in Missouri wanted her to vote “no,” but she proceeded to vote “yes.” Yet, during the town hall meetings, this senator said that the people of Missouri were her boss.

Folks, I’m sorry, but I personally believe that our Sen. McCaskill leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to telling the truth.

I would hope that those of you reading this article would take the time to make a phone call or write a letter to Sen. McCaskill asking — no telling her — that you want her to vote “no” on this merged bill.

Tell her we know that we need health care reform, but we do not need it to occur in the manner that the Democrats are proposing or pushing, especially when the Senate bill will not have any changes occur for several years, except of course the taxation that we citizens will see as a result of the passing of this bill.

We need them to reform health care through the legislative process of voting for tort reform, tax-free health savings accounts, incentives for healthy lifestyles, insurance pools for small businesses, moderate legislation, and regulations to control the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

We could also allow insurance companies to do business across state lines, and control the cost of Medicare and Medicaid by taking people off the rolls who do not belong there.

I would also suggest that for those who have pre-existing conditions, that perhaps each insurance company doing a certain percentage of business throughout the United States take on insuring a percentage of those folks and being compensated by tax breaks, or even being allowed to pass a small percentage of the added cost on to its customers. Folks, doing all or even a portion of these suggestions will allow health care to be not only more affordable, but would make allowances for those that have pre-existing conditions to obtain health insurance.

And, all of this can be done without producing a 2,000 page bill, and most of all without spending money that our country doesn’t have.

Please contact the senator at her Washington office (202-224-6154), her Springfield office (417-868-8745) or by mail: Hart Senate Bldg., Ste 717, Washington, D.C. 20510.

Don Ray lives in Joplin.