TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The Obama administration has invited Congressional Republicans to the White House to discuss health care reform. Ezra Klein describes the terms:

In conversations today, the White House was quick to emphasize a couple of points. First, they’re not starting over. Legislation has already passed the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. That’s not to be taken lightly, and the White House isn’t taking it lightly. “The President has made it clear that he’s adamant about passing comprehensive reform similar to the bills passed by the House and the Senate,” one official said.

So in other words, he’s going to “listen” to their ideas, maybe incorporate a few small ones, and call it bipartisan.

But there is no real discussion if the core of the bill — the mandate and additional entitlements — are off the table for debate. Once government has affirmed its right to require individuals to pay for health care, and has begun paying for health care costs of an even larger percentage of the population, then there is no logical barrier for government to provide health care. They can say, “the government already pays for a majority of the population’s health care costs. Your bad choices are costing us money. So we’re going to do two things: we’re going to limit how much unhealthy food you can eat, like soda, junk food and fast food; and we’re going to take control of health care to make it more efficient and effective for you.” This is perfectly logical when the government (1) can require everyone to purchase health care, and (2) pays for or subsidizes a large part of the population’s health costs.

Once that step is made — the individual mandate and increased entitlements — government-controlled health care is inevitable. And the Democrats know it.

This means that the administration’s conference is pure political theatre, meant to cast the bill as bipartisan. The Republicans shouldn’t enable this.