Rachel Maddow and Kent Jones do a hokie, but apt parody of what dealing with the Republicans on health care amounts to. Kent Jones really doesn't want to order pizza, and the Republicans really don't want any sort of health care reform.
Maddow: Republicans in the United States' Senate are Kent. And we're trying to order pizza. They do say that they want health care reform.
[....]
Because Republicans have said that they want health care reform, Democrats have been trying to work with them to come up with a bill that both sides can agree on. We can compromise. Democrats took national health care and single payer off the table from the very beginning because they were sure that Republicans wouldn't want those.
Then they started negotiating down from there, trying to find something, anything that the Republican would say yes to. But just as national health care was unacceptable to them, and single payer was unacceptable to them, the public option is also turning out to be unacceptable to them. And now even the further watered down reform option of co-ops are unacceptable to them.
[....]
That's a really important moment. Senator Grassley is the top Republican negotiator in the Senate on health care and he just admitted to Chuck Todd that even if he personally gets to draft a bill for the Senate to vote on, even if he ends up with a policy to vote on that he thinks is great, he himself might not vote for it.
Mean while Jon Kyl, the number two Republican in the whole Senate told reporters on a conference call today that dropping the public option still won't get any Republicans to vote for the bill.
No matter what is in the bill, Republicans are not going to vote for the bill. No matter what is on the pizza, Kent doesn't want it.
Maybe it's time for Democrats to take the hint. Republicans don't want pizza. Order exactly what you want. Put together the best possible reform bill purely on the basis of what you think the best policy for the country is, and then, forget the Republicans. Focus on getting all the Democrats in line to vote for it.
The Republicans are not here to help. And Kent is not here to make a good pizza order. Take the hint.
