Anyway, now that Republicans have lost on their latest hissy fit – they mustered 47 votes, but needed 60 votes to move their amendment forward – hopefully they will have gotten this particular idiocy out of their systems and allow the Senate to move on to real business. As Sen. Reid says:
It’s time to move on from extreme, ideological plans to repeal a health care law that is lowering prices, expanding access to care and lowering our deficit. There is plenty of work left to do together to create jobs, expand our economy and move this country forward.
Makes perfect sense, which is exactly why Republicans probably will do the exact opposite. It’s ironic – not that Republicans have any understanding of irony – that these are the same people who screamed at Democrats for not focusing on the economy, every time Democrats tried to vote on anything else, from clean energy to health care to the START treaty to whatever. Yet, now that Republicans are in charge in the House and with larger numbers in the Senate, it’s fine for them to never focus on the economy. I guess that makes sense in the “up is down/black is white/war is peace” world of the Republicans.
P.S. Also keep in mind that Republicans were voting against the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In fact, only 26% of Americans want to “repeal it completely,” while 19% want to “leave it as is” and 43% want to “change it so that it does MORE to change the health care system.” For the math challenged among us, that’s 62% who want to leave it alone or expand it, versus just 26% who want to “repeal it completely.”
UPDATE: See the “flip” for a great speech by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, from our neighboring state of Maryland. Definitely worth watching, I wish all Democrats talked like this!
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