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The brewing abortion debate and Dems' latest "strategy" for passing their health care overhaul is a giant red herring designed to distract attention away from the overall problem with Obamacare: its infringement on freedom. RedState's Erick Erickson has a analysis out today that rightfully cautions the GOP not to take its eye off the prize and to remember what the party should stand for in this ongoing debate. Read and take to heart, conservatives:
Let me be clear to the conservative movement and the organizations participating in the health care debate: the fight over health care is about freedom, not your ridiculous little scorecards. ...
...[F]or each issue the GOP raises to be addressed in the [health care] bill, the Democrats and a token Republican will play accommodationist as the media fawns over the bipartisan nature of each compromise. The danger is that the GOP will start with the presupposition that the health care bill will pass and work to “improve” it. The GOP must get out of that mindset. Republicans working toward destroying legislation they believe will inevitably pass will not destroy the legislation. At the end of the day, the GOP must flat out oppose the government take over of 1/6th of the American economy. Instead of clamoring for issues to be addressed, the GOP must contrast freedom with the tyranny of the legislation. ... Mandates must come out because government should not force people to purchase health insurance. The public option must come out because it will destroy competition and intentionally undermine contracts between private entities. Triggers must be abandoned because Obama will have every incentive to trigger the trigger. Payment restrictions to doctors must come out because government should not set wages for doctors. It must be a game of subtraction. After the GOP is done demanding things come out, not be ameliorated or added, there will be no bill left that the left can support. Additionally, the GOP must orchestrate a strategy to put Democrats up for election in difficult positions — offering up amendments that the Democrats cannot say no to, but that take away votes from the overall legislation once agreed to. This bill doesn’t just have a few things wrong with it, it’s a thousand pages of bad ideas that will hurt — not help — America. There are real health reforms that our country desperately needs (tort reform, interstate competition, tax equity, etc) but none of them are in this bill, and Democrats will never allow them to be. This is a showdown between freedom and socialism. The Senate Republicans and right-of-center interest groups need to stop trying to negotiate a surrender and join the fight.
This is a tremendous lesson for the Republican Party to learn and act upon. The only acceptable victory for the GOP in this debate is to defeat the legislation in defense of freedom.
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