GOP Reeks of Desperation over Health Care Reform

The fight for meaningful Health Care Reform has been set in motion for what could be its final weekend.

House Speaker Pelosi has stated that the Democratic-controlled House is "very close" to reaching the 218 votes needed to pass Health Care Reform which includes a public option and protections for patients with pre-existing conditions.

Pelosi's work became a little easier as newly-elected NY-23 Congressman Bill Owens has indicated support for the House bill.

The GOP offered an alternative bill, which among other things, does not stop insurers from dropping clients due to pre-existing conditions; only cuts the deficit by 68 billion dollars, 36 billion dollars less than the Democratic plan; would actually cause the number of un-insured Americans to rise to 52 million by 2019; and does not prevent insurers from denying you coverage due to pre-existing conditions. It has been widely panned as ineffective.

On the heels of endorsements from the AARP and the American Medical Association, President Obama is expected to give a "full-throated endorsement" to the bill sometime today.

Meanwhile . . .

As Democrats were working constructively to garner support for their House bill, Republicans were making a "Hail Mary" play.

In an act of seeming desperation, a now-familiar "Tea Bagger" rally was organized by Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann on the steps of the US Capitol. (The rally, reportedly, was not sanctioned by the GOP House leadership.) Participants spent their time chanting "Kill the Bill" and listening to GOP politicians who sought to get their face on television, if only to babel on about how much "freedom" the Democratic House bill would deprive American citizens. (Many of these same Congress-people who initially criticized Bachmann's efforts made the time to show up, anyhow.)

Take a look:

As Republicans were falling over themselves to bash the Democrats' plan, they resorted to the only thing they know how to do when faced with certain ideological defeat -- fear-mongering from behind the protection of the American flag.

The American public supports the public option; the American Medical Association supports the public option and the AARP supports the public option -- so why do Republicans still defiantly oppose the public option?

Because it wasn't their idea and they can't take credit for it.

Desperately searching for a new brand image for the GOP, Congressional Republicans have clung to their "patriotism" in an effort to prove that they are more American than the Democratic Party. But in their fervor to prove their American ideals and love of all things related to freedom, they certainly made a few gaffes:

By embracing such fanatic activities as likening the Democratic plan for Health Care Reform to Nazism and appearing at a rally where pictures of victims of the Holocaust are shown, Republican members of Congress are doing two distinct things: one, they are giving credence to such wild claims and, more saddening, they are divorcing themselves from the real human emotion which is inherent in events like the Holocaust.

As human beings we should be compassionate to those in need -- for example, by ensuring that all Americans have access to quality health care, not working to actively derail the process. Democrats are working towards this currently, the Republicans are not.

Like many other Hail Mary plays, the Republicans' final play on preventing health care reform is one which has been made in desperation with little chance of success.