Healthcare Bill Signing and GOP Reaction

The healthcare bill has been signed by the president, and the GOP tries to take its ball and go home.

It is official.  President Obama has signed the bill that should provide healthcare coverage for all citizens. 

“We are a nation that faces its challenges and accepts its responsibilities. We are a nation that does what is hard,” he says in closing. “That is what makes us the United States of America. We have now enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health.”

As we have pointed out, with the new bill comes a significant number of wins, losses and challenges.  Although many of us have been upset about the fact that reproductive health was used as a bargaining chip rather than upheld as a (legal) right, we’re managing to move on and try to be enthusiastic about what progress will be made by the bill.

However, those who have been obstructing the bill from the start are being much less magnanimous.  In fact, the term “sore loser” could be pretty easily applied.

Monday morning quarterbacking on the way reform played out between the parties led some conservative voices to question whether Republicans shot themselves in the foot by refusing to negotiate with leadership.

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

But self-reflection doesn’t seem to be in the cards for a majority of the party, who are ready to continue obstructing in any way they can.

Sen. John McCain (R – AZ), anointing himself as the spokesperson for the Republican Party, sent out a message that leadership can expect “no cooperation” from the GOP this year (as opposed to all of the help they’ve been thus far?).

On Monday, the Republican senator lashed out again at passage of Obama’s health-care plan, vowing that his party will no longer work with the president.

“There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year,” he told an Arizona radio station. “They have poisoned the well in what they’ve done and how they’ve done it.”

Apparently Sen. McCain has given up on his “country first” theme.

Other Republicans, upset that their party was not allowed to obstruct reform since a majority of congress (and the American people) wanted it to pass, are now turning to the local states to try and block it.  So far thirteen states are challenging reform as “unconstitutional.

“This lawsuit should put the federal government on notice that Florida will not permit the constitutional rights of our citizens and the sovereignty of our state to be ignored or disregarded,” said Attorney General Bill McCollum.

McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor, led the charge to challenge a provision that would require most people to buy health insurance or else pay a fine.

He was joined by the Republican attorneys general of South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Pennsylvania, Washington, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado and Alabama and the Democratic attorneys general of Michigan and Louisiana.

Virginia has filed its own suit against reform, and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has all but announced his 2012 presidential run, is trying to push the state’s Attorney General into filing suit as well.  Idaho, besides filing suit, passed a bill last week preemptively to ban federally mandated insurance in the state.

We knew we were going to be in for a lot of heated rhetoric when a Texas representative started yelling “baby killer” at Rep. Stupak (D-MI) on the House floor.  But Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) ratcheted the lies up even further by wrongly stating the bill would force abortions for increase by 30 percent.

[Rebecca] Wind [of the Guttmacher Institute] explained that although the Guttmacher Institute does report that if the so-called Hyde Amendment (which has banned federal Medicaid coverage of abortions since 1976) were repealed, the number of abortions in the U.S. would increase about one third — but only among Medicaid-enrolled women and only in states that don’t themselves currently subsidize abortions for poor women…

But, of course, the Hyde amendment isn’t going to be repealed under the new health reform legislation. So the whole issue is moot.

But what’s a little misleading, inaccurate facts among politicians?

And how are those conservative talking heads referenced above dealing with the bill’s passage?

Conservative talk hosts reacted to the new health care bill this morning about the same way white mice respond to being swallowed by boa constrictors.

Not happy.

“We need to defeat these bastards,” said Rush Limbaugh. “We need to wipe them out. Defeat the Democrats, every one of them that voted for this bill.”

The bill means “leftist radicals will now be making your health care decisions, instead of your doctor,’ warned Limbaugh. “America is hanging by a thread.”

Glenn Beck, on his radio show, offered a similar sentiment in addressing President Obama and Democrats who supported the bill: “Our master is common sense and God. I don’t think right now you have either one on your side.”

I suppose it was too much to hope that Rush would stick to his word and just leave the country.