So it looks like the Republicans are going to start their House takeover with a bang. They plan on making an effort to immediately repeal the health care law, thereby wiping out one of Barack Obama’s major accomplishments.
If you follow politics at all (left, right, center, whatever), this is a pretty damn transparent move: Over the last 2 1/2 weeks of 2010, the president absolutely kicked the GOP’s ass, walking away with a handful of top-flight achievements that, in a wink’s time, made him go from Jimmy Carter to FDR. It was astonishing, and I honestly believe the Republicans don’t know what hit them.
Now they’re hitting back.
Is the health care bill a good one? Hard to say—since most of the provisions haven’t even kicked in yet. But if I’m a Democrat, I don’t cower from this one. I paint the Republicans as wicked, support-only-the-wealthiest monsters who have no interest in helping the nation’s poor and uninsured. I’d come up with the number of people who’d gain health coverage under the new law and tattoo it atop every Republican’s head. I’d trot out every sick kid I can find and make it clear that, once the Republicans repeal this law, they’re goners. I’d repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly mention that, during the George W. Bush administration, nothing was done about our nation’s horrific health care system. And why? Because if you’re wealthy, you’re either covered, or covered and employed by the companies making millions off of the old system.
The Democrats need to remind average citizens that health coverage in this nation blows (it truly does), and the Republicans have never lifted a finger to fix it.
Will the strategy work? Maybe. But it sure beats cowering.
