Recent Developments on Health Care

With all of the outrage over ObamaCare, Democrats and the White House have now backed off the idea of having a "public option" in their nationalized health care plan. However, here's the interesting thing; if there's no public option then what is the point of having the health care legislation whenever the public option was the whole point of the legislation in the first place? Removing the public option from the health care essentially make the legislation "worthless" since the creation of a public option was the whole thesis of it.

So, with ObamaCare on the ropes, the Democrats are now considering just voting on the issue and passing it without Republican support. The Democrats have the 51 votes necessary to pass ObamaCare without the Republicans but I find this interesting because whenever the debate began the Democrats were saying they needed to Republicans. Now, however, the attitude has changed, but why? Some Democrats are thinking about just passing ObamaCare despite the political consequences. While I salute their resolve, I think that this move, while valiant, is not the move they should make. Essentially they know that voting for ObamaCare is political suicide but I do not understand how any politician can vote for ObamaCare. While I have no problem with Democrats (or idiot Republicans) committing political suicide, but ObamaCare is just terrible legislation. It is one thing to go down fighting over good legislation, but another to go down over bad legislation.
However, the Democrats have had the votes to pass ObamaCare all along. They have majorities in both the House and Senate; so why did the Democrats insist on having Republican support? Simple; they do not want to take sole responsibility for ObamaCare. Basically, they want joint responsibility for ObamaCare so if the American people get angry over ObamaCare passing the Democrats can say, "Republicans voted for it too!" That is one of the reasons why they wanted (and still want) Republican support. Spokesman for the Republican National Committee Ken Spain said:

"Apparently having a filibuster-proof majority, a 40-seat advantage in the House, and a president who was once really popular isn’t enough. [...] Maybe if people actually liked the bill, Democrats’ wouldn’t have such a tough time whipping up bipartisan votes, much less vulnerable Democrats within their own party."

Here is another reason why they want Republican support. Whenever Obama was campaigning the Democrats and media were touting Obama as the individual that was going to end partisanship; Obama was the great unifier, etc. But, the exact opposite is true. Obama is not a unifier has people touted him to be because in many cases, Obama/Democrat legislation has passed but without a single Republican vote. Why is this? Simple; the Republicans do not like Obama/Democrat policies.