Reporter's Notebook

- Paul Leonard can be contacted at pleonard@vbjusa.com

Obama’s Tough Sell

Tonight, President Barack Obama will make his pitch to breathe new life into the mother of all tough sells – his signature health care reform effort. This isn’t the first time Just Business has advocated a health care reform bill that tackles the high-cost of health coverage choking small businesses across the region and the country. And it won’t be the last.

But as Congress considers legislation the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost over $1 trillion, while possibly still leaving millions of Americans uninsured, it’s time to shed some light on a process so far obscured by the usual partisan bickering.

The small business owner in Washougal struggling to cover his or her employees, the unemployed worker in Vancouver making due without health insurance and every taxpayer expected to foot the bill for any plan – all of them ought to know exactly how much health care is going to cost and how we are going to pay for it.

That’s why we call on Congressman Brian Baird and Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to continue keeping their constituents up-to-date on the process of health care reform so that everyone can fully participate in what might be the most important piece of legislation since the New Deal.