December 13th, 2009:

Re: The GOP’s New Health-Care Hoax – Page 1 – The Daily Beast

The Bush twins

It’s no surprise that Republicans want to halt the march to historic health-care reform with any calumny they can muster. But their latest attack on the new Senate deal—the charge that allowing Americans aged 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare would lead the country to a single-payer system—is as laughable as it is misguided. It’s ironic that this shameful stone is being hurled by the nation’s most prominent life-long recipient of government-run health care: John McCain.

McCain’s invocation of the single-payer libel is particularly galling, since he’s been on government-run health care practically his entire adult life.

McCain is saying that the the Senate health compromise would lead to a single-payer system. I ask, what’s the downside to that? The health insurance industry should go away like the way cheap Chinese labor killed millions of American jobs. No one in congress screamed about that, did they? The health care industry has been a ruthless overlord of the people’s health for too long. It is time that we the people took control. We need single-payer now.

…Democrats have struggled to expand coverage, boost quality, and craft reforms that could bend the cost curve over time. In other words, Democrats have been struggling to govern. Republicans, by contrast, sit back and take pot shots at whatever emerges, giddy with the freedom that comes from having no responsibility for anything but their own thirst to return to power. A week ago, Republicans were against cutting Medicare, saying it would endanger senior citizens, and now they’re against expanding it. If you see no way to bridge these two views besides political opportunism, you’re beginning to understand modern GOP political philosophy.

Republicans offer nothing. They have nothing to offer except more of the same failed Bush policies that got us into this economic toilet flush in the first place. Republicans have obstructed, filibustered, more legislation since 2006 than any other time in US history. They obstruct honest attempts to legislate without any honest debate and without any contribution of their own. They are more interested in spreading hate than doing what’s right.

It is time to change the filibuster rule. We must lower the number of votes for cloture to 55 instead of the 60 votes it takes now. Changing the rules only takes a majority vote.

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