Oh we got both kinds, Democrat and Liberal Democrats!

Pelosi: Health care bill can be bipartisan even without GOP votes

The top lug nut of the House, Speaker Mrs. Pelosi, appears to be signaling that her party has all but given up any hope [finally] of achieving meaningful bipartisan support for a health care reform bill.

“Bipartisanship is a two-way street. But let me say this, the bill can be bipartisan, even though the votes might not be bipartisan, because they [Republicans] have made their imprint on this.”

Uh, huh huh. Wut?

Pelosi pointed to the fact that the final bill will, probably, not include a government-run public health insurance option, a provision vigorously opposed by congressional Republicans but supported by liberal House Democrats. Instead, Pelosi said that Democrats have settled on insurance exchanges as a way to help contain health care costs. No tort reform or anything that might ACTUALLY contain costs... But her compromise position reflects an acknowledgment of Republicans’ approach to health care reform. Oh, so that's how we're defining bi-partisanship now?

The Senate and the President do not include a public option in their versions - maybe that's what she's blabbering about? While pissing off all the Democrats who very much want a public option - or a single payer option to health care - White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration made that decision to drop it because it did not appear that there would be sufficient votes to get the public option passed in Congress. Even with a super majority? Although some liberal Democrats in both chambers favor a public option, a substantial block of conservative Democrats in the House, known as the Blue Dogs, do not support it. Blue Dogs are folks who won Republican seats from Republicans by pretending to be Republicans, but put a 'D' on their ballot slips. These are the folks that are dropping like flies and are the most likely members to be booted out in November.

Pelosi is also quick to suggest that President Obama and congressional Democrats have gone to great lengths to give Republicans an opportunity to weigh in on health care reform notwithstanding fundamental ideological differences between the two parties. You know, except include them in the process, listen to their suggestions, or bend over backwards to cut special deals like the rest of the Democrats have been given. Oh, there was that little pow-wow last week - but the President released his plan before the meeting (oooh, bad timing!) and that gauranteed that the entire program was just a show for both parties to toss mud at each other.

Democrats - see? we tried, and they didn't want to play!

Republicans - They've staged this whole thing to make us look like obstructionists - when they had no intention on listening us in the first place.

It's all just b.s. political theater for the reporters anyway.

“We went into the legislative process - hundreds of hours of hearings and bill writing and all the rest - where the Republicans made their suggestions,” Pelosi recounts. “We know that one of the reasons we didn’t have a bill in the fall is because the president wanted to give the Senate more time to arrive at bipartisanship in the Senate bill, which he thought might be possible then.” Funny, that's not at all how I remember it...

Pelosi added, “And so what we’ve had is the year of trying to strive for bipartisanship, as I say over 100 Republican amendments in the bill. And the Republicans placed their own bill on the floor, here in the House, which insured 3 million. Our bill insures over 30 million. So we have a different value system here.” Yes, it seems theirs scraps a system that insures 300 million to insure 30, 15 of those are illegal aliens. The Republican one? Never heard of it.

I've promised you, fair readers, that I wouldn't complain and that I would offer solutions. I even took the time to come up with my own Health Care Solution.

In the meantime - let's stop having Health Care as a condition of employment, and a function of the individual. Like car ownership. You have collision and liability insurance on your car. If there's a fix or maintenance - it is up to the single owner to take care of it. Maybe it's just that simple? If not, we better come up with something else quick before Mrs. Pelosi starts swinging her lug wrench again.