As an indication of how broken our media is, they are now wasting valuable air-time discussing Republicans' "plans" to repeal health care reform, an almost impossible event.
I am not sure what planet, or what nation, the Republicans live on or in, but the idea that healthcare reform can be repealed is not only mickey-mouse, it is fantasyland.
Regardless of what the Republican louts do in the Senate -- voting against removing provisions they railed against! -- the House passed the identical bill the Senate already passed with a supermajority, and the President will sign it into law. Tomorrow.
To repeal that bill, Republicans will have to get to 60 votes in the Senate (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! -- serves them right) and a majority in the House. For the next 3 years, and probably the next 7, they will need 67 votes in the Senate and 290 votes in the House to override President Obama's veto.
And, what exactly, would they repeal? They will wipe children from 18-26 off of their parents' health insurance? They will again allow discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, wiping millions off of insurance rolls? They will reinstate lifetime caps on health care reimbursement, driving hundreds of thousands of families into bankruptcy? They will again allow insurance companies to drop coverage when an enrollee actually gets sick? They will spend $500B overpaying medicare? They will re-open the donut hole? They will cancel medical insurance for 32 million people who will now have it? They will eliminate tax credits for small businesses that provide health insurance for their employees?
Now, I know they will eliminate the taxes that the new law imposes to help pay for health care reform, and they can probably do that with a simple majority in the Senate. And, John Boehner will certainly insist on removing the tanning-booth tax [notice how red-faced he was Sunday night?]. But, all that will do is balloon the deficit....so much for their "new religion" of deficit reduction!
Republican majorities would, of course, allow them to create mischief. They could -- under reconciliation that would, you see, no longer be a dirty word -- defund subsidies, defund studies looking at best practices, defund electronic medical records, repeal tax credits for small businesses, and so forth....all mickey-mouse stuff, and they are all into mickey-mouse -- tobacco-lobby check-distributor John Boehner, their leader, had to admonish them to act like adults.
But, repealing health care reform -- adventures in fantasyland.