Not that this is surprise, but Republicans aren’t supporting total repeal of the health care legislation that will (by design) ultimately morph into a single payer government health care system, giving them more direct control over our lives than ever. The public overwhelmingly supports repeal, providing Republicans a clear issue to run and win huge on this November, yet they (with some notable exceptions) can’t muster the courage to do it:
Hours after the House passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) made good on a promise and introduced a short bill that would repeal the whole thing. The goal, she explained, was to get every Republican to co-sponsor it.
About one month later, neither Bachmann’s bill nor companion bills in the House and Senate have won majority support from their peers. Only 52 House Republicans have co-sponsored Bachmann’s repeal bill, H.R. 4903, and only 62 House Republicans have co-sponsored Rep. Steve King’s (Iowa) repeal bill, H.R. 4972. Most of the same people have co-sponsored both. Only 20 Republican senators have co-sponsored Sen. Jim DeMint’s (S.C.) repeal bill, S. 3152. That worries some Republicans who want to run hard on repeal in November.
“What I run into,” King told me recently, “is that you ask Republicans to support 100 percent full repeal, but there are a number of them that aren’t committed to full repeal. They have an equivocation that they would leave a piece there, a piece there, a piece there. If Republicans cannot unanimously come together and support 100 percent repeal of Obamacare and then start to rebuild, then we will not win this victory, because we’ll be divided by the Democrats and fighting on Obama’s turf.”
One has to wonder why Republicans don’t unite on a clear electoral (and moral) winner. I don’t have a good answer, but I do know it’s this type of non-leadership that got them voted out in massive numbers in 2006 and 2008.
I know it seems like the American people can’t do any more to demonstrate how much we oppose this bill, and now that it’s law, Republicans seem content to stop fighting it. We can’t let that happen. Somehow, we must pressure them even more to stand up and stop corrupt politicians from stealing liberty from the American soul. They must understand that if they don’t pledge a full repeal of this legislation, and then fulfill that pledge (I know, that’s asking a lot of politicians), we will replace them with representatives who will, regardless of which party they belong to.
