Wednesday, January 19, 2011

GOP 'health care repeal' is La-La Land fantasy world

Posted By on Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 3:20 PM

Today, the Republicans who took over the House of Representatives are demonstrating their positive, practical agenda for improving the lives of Americans by engaging in an elaborate fantasy. They intend to pass a bill that would repeal the health care reform passed by the last Congress. Afterward, the bill will be voted down in the Senate; and even if it somehow passed through Congress, the President will veto it.

Never mind the GOP’s arguments — which are largely based on dishonest, or perhaps fantasy-based, numbers (as columnist Paul Krugman says, these guys seem to have given up on the war on terror for a war on arithmetic and logic).

Here’s my point: Even if you accept Republican arguments for repealing health care reform, the whole exercise is a waste of time and effort, doomed to eventual defeat; it’s an odd charade, designed to throw some red meat to the GOP’s teabagger wing and little else. Considering the depth and breadth of the country’s problems, and all the Republican talk of urgency during the 2010 campaign, taking up so much time on such a fool’s errand is more than just silly or cynical — it’s a disgrace.

At the very least, however, you'd expect the GOPers in Congress to stick to their beliefs and decline government-sponsored health coverage for themselves, right? We-l-l-l-l, wait a minute now, let’s don’t go overboard with this thing. So far, only eight GOP members of Congress have opted out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. ThinkProgress has created a video in which they asked several repeal-supporting congressmen if they planned to continue getting health insurance through the federal government. The reasons given for keeping their sweet deal while denying new benefits to ordinary Americans are priceless. At least Rep. Ron Paul admitted his position “could be” hypocritical, which is more than the other tone-deaf lawmakers mustered. Here’s the video from ThinkProgress:

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