I am about a week or 2 late on healthcare commentary... hopefully my catchy title will draw people into a discussion.  I don't want to gloat over the Republicans losing for a couple reasons 1) in general I am against "cheerleader politics"... choosing a team and sticking with them no matter how despicable or poorly they perform should not be how we do politics in America... It may be how Cubs fans are created, but those same emotions should not apply to how we choose, stick with, and evaluate political parties.  2) why gloat if it is not a perfect bill as everyone keeps saying? -- "not a perfect bill" yeah, there's the understatement of the year.   The whole problem is the private insurance companies.. so the solution is giving them more customers?.. and no public option to compete with them to drive down prices?  hummmm... some solution... also it costs damn near a trillion dollars, but I'll get to that later.

Anyway, I just said, I don't want to gloat, but the temptation is soooo great and it would be soooo easy... It would be easy to ask Sarah Palin or John McCain how it feels to get something "rammed down their throat."  It would be easy to ask Jim DeMint whose Waterloo it is now, bitch?  It would be easy to tell Limbaugh to get your fat floppy jowls the fuck out of this country (like you said you would if healthcare passed).. but alas doing so is beneath me (well maybe not, but at least it should be).

Hey Republicans...  I got an idea, instead of "death panels"  and "total government takeover" and constantly and ludicrously invoking rationing and the British and Canadian healthcare systems as scare tactics... instead of calling this bill "apocalyptic" and rousing toothless teapartiers with tired old rhetoric... maybe you should have simply said this:  This overhaul will cost 1 trillion dollars, that is 1 trillion dollars we don't have right now, lets make small steps in the right direction like banning dropping someone because they are sick, and fixing the preexisting conditions problem, and maybe revising COBRA so if you lose your job you don't have to worry as much about healthcare for your family... 

Taadaa!  Suddenly they dont sound like crazy people...  Maybe actual discourse could come from a reasonable statement like this..

Like it or not, what I just wrote seems like a perfectly reasonable tact for Republicans... instead of invoking the apocalypse, and the end of America as we know it... instead of calling Obama an Islamo-fascist-socialist-pinko, and lying about death panels, maybe highlight the huge, huge cost of this thing, and offer a modest proposal that costs less, yet cures most of the major issues with health insurance (of course I am leaving out the 50 million without insurance problem, but I think the solution we have now is actually a Republican one.. just ask Mitt Romney).  but alas no.  Being reasonable is not in the current Republican party's lexicon.  They have only a couple cards in their deck and and their favorite one to play is Fear... Fear about terrorism, fear about socialism, fear about immigrants, fear about gay marriage. 

 Fearmongering and no-mongering is the only thing they know how to do.  I could gloat, but it is really just sad.  It is sad to see 1 of 2 major parties in this country reduced to crazies, cowards, and no-mongers.  Not only doing nothing, but actively obstructing change to a system that everyone knows needs changing was utterly cowardly and ultimately I think not in the Republicans best interest and (alway as an after thought) not in America's best interest either... They saw a political win and frothed at the mouth, and bayed like dogs at the prospect of that political win. 

Can you imagine if instead of the months and months of bullshit death panels, and "rammed down our throat" and "the American people dont want it"  and social-fascist-communism, the Republicans stuck with 1 or 2 talking points "cost too much, now not right time etc." and said they would support a bill with basic protections for Americans, as long as it isnt too costly?   Can you imagine a Republican party that tried to lead instead of relied on fear tactics and rabble-rousing?  Ugh... the Republican party is too pathetic to gloat over...