Look, the Republicans are no more going to repeal this bill than they are to execute Santa Claus. Not gonna happen! But the Mighty Wurlitzer is geared up now to express the party's "sadness" and "concern" over the "government takeover" that's being "shoved down our throats" (hats off to Frank Luntz for that S&M imagery!).
They're happy to beat this issue like the dead horse it is, just as they've done with abortion for decades. Talking about the socialist evils of health care reform will fire up their base and be a cash cow for their various fundraising efforts. So everybody's happy!
(And just as an aside: Notice Gov. Tim Pawlenty has finally cut off his mullet. That's how you know he's a Very Serious Candidate for president.)
President Obama will sign the historic health care bill into law this morning, but Republicans are still fighting back with promises of lawsuits and heated rhetoric, including a shot from one GOP governor who blasted what he called Obama's "nanny nation approach" to government.
Republicans across the country are specifically challenging the mandate in the health care bill that requires every individual to have health insurance, charging that it is unconstitutional.
The individual mandate is an "unprecedented overreach by the federal government forcing individual citizens to buy a good or a service for no other reason then they happen to be alive or a person," Republican governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty said today on "Good Morning America."
Pawlenty said he sent a letter to Minnesota's Democratic attorney general arguing against the constitutionality of the mandate.
"They've taken it to this big, federalized, bureaucratic, government-run, kind of nanny nation approach," Pawlenty said. "I don't think defending the Constitution and individual's rights under the Constitution, and the relationship between states and the federal government under the Constitution is a frivolous matter."
Twelve state attorneys general, all of whom are Republican, have already filed suits to block the health care bill on the grounds that its requirement that everyone have health insurance is unconstitutional. Four state legislatures have already passed laws blocking the bill.
