A History Lesson

Its not so much that it was the product of well over a year of discussion and compromise, that it survived a trip to the Supreme Court and a surprising swing vote by Justice Roberts, or that it was the centerpiece for the 2012 campaign which resulted in an overwhelming victory for President Obama. It is that the Affordable Care Act is at its very core a decidedly Republican idea.

It grew out of the mind of a right wing think tank and was put into place in Massachusetts, with apparent great success, by the Republican standard bearer this past November,  Mr. Romney, whose name was the first attached to this method of distribution of health care services.

The reflexive determination to oppose has led to great victories for a party that garnered millions of fewer votes, both on the Presidential and Congressional level in the last election, and is holding the reins to but one of the three government branches. Immigration reform was dead on arrival, gun control has been an overwhelming debacle and bank regulation is nowhere in sight. Drill baby drill is a very dirty secret and minimal environmental inroads are only a result of executive action.

By its threats and obstructionism it has forced the President to enter into the not so grand bargain for sequestration and to abandon even the pretense of fighting for any tax increases on the wealthy. Stimulating the economy has been a job that has fallen to Ben Bernanke.

Why under those circumstances would they feel they are making a mistake in their present stance?

So, forget that they are screaming for the death of their own idea on health care reform. While rational beings shake their heads and wonder what could be driving such apparent idiocy, the answer is history.