By David Vitrano

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – A couple of weeks ago, President Barack Obama held a bipartisan healthcare summit to try to advance his stalled healthcare reform legislation.

Since then, while the summit did bring the issue somewhat back to the forefront of the political scene, much of the talk has centered around anything but healthcare. “How many times did Obama interrupt those who were speaking?” and “how much time was given to Democrats versus how much time was given to Republicans” seem to be the most frequent topics of conversation.

In contrast to this, L’Observateur asked its readers last week to answer the following poll question: “With the healthcare reform initiative having somewhat stalled in Congress, President Barack Obama held a bipartisan summit last week to try to get the ball rolling again. What do you think needs to be done regarding healthcare reform?”

Over half of those who responded thought the government should stay out of healthcare.

The response that included government involvement that garnered the most votes was for the government to start the whole process over again.

The two responses that included the current legislation, either in its entirety or in a revised form, earned just one-fifth of the votes cumulatively.

A full breakdown of responses follows:

• 29 percent of respondents chose “They need to start the whole process from scratch and come up with a new plan.”

• 10 percent of respondents chose “They should try to pass the current plan as is.”

• 10 percent of respondents chose “They should make some changes to the current plan.”

• 51 percent of respondents chose “The government should leave healthcare alone.”

Next week’s question: Social media Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become all the rage. What is your opinion of such sites?

Visit www.lobservateur.com to vote.