The pressure is on Democrats in charge of the health care takeover to make the House-Senate negotiations open to citizens by televising the wheeling and dealing on C-Span.

Georgia's Republican Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss joined their 38 GOP colleagues in the Senate yesterday in signing a letter to Democratic majority leader Harry Reid urging "full transparency" via C-Span.

The Georgia senators restated their criticism of "secret, closed-door negotiating and drafting of the Senate Democrats' $2.5 trillion health care bill during a debate that ended with a final vote on Christmas Eve."

C-Span itself, which routinely covers congressional doings, released an open letter to Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Republican leaders calling for all important talks and conference committee meetings to be open for coverage by the network.

"Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access through television to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American," the C-Span letter said.

Reid and Pelosi offered the usual blah-blah about an open process, but the most telling comments came not from them but from President Barack Obama in a statement by him as a candidate, courtesy of the Republican senators in their letter to Reid.

Candidate Obama declared in August 2008:

"I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies - they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."

Isakson, Chambliss and their fellow Republicans urged Reid to accept the C-Span offer to cover all House-Senate negotiating sessions live.

Reid's office issued a statement, saying "We will continue to fully comply with the longstanding precedents of open access to the work of Congress."

Pelosi asserted, "there has never been a more open process for any legislation" and said "tens of thousands of people participated in our town meetings" - (most of them opposed to the Democrat plan but totally ignored when it came to writing the bill.)

Pelosi said the Internet is another venue in which the legislation "has had visibility for a very long time." Then she said, "We don't know what route we will take" and "We will do what is necessary to pass the bill."

Transparency? It would take a dozen Philadelphia lawyers to detect and decipher the actual meaning and effect of amendments, motions and changes made in the conference committee - even out in the open.

Even so, it's time for President Obama to keep candidate Obama's pledge of transparency.

dmckee9613@aol.com