Dear Opponents of Health Care Reform

I was wrong. You are right. Although I still believe that our medical system is the biggest threat to our solvency as a nation, you are right; I admit it. Those few “plants” in town halls--whether self-motivated by “good intentions” to ask questions about a subject they thought relevant while misrepresenting themselves, or being part of the Big Brother Obama Fascist Communist Anarchist Peacenik Surrender-monkey Death Squad--were so heinous that I now believe that we, as pro-reform advocates, must now withdraw our grievances against the current health care system and wait at least 16 years before failing to pass health care reform again. This is the appropriate recourse, despite the victory of a presidential candidate who ran on a platform including health care reform, the fraction of one percent of people who have disrupted the debate are so heinous that we must abandon efforts to bring the system and it’s costs in line with other industrialized nations with similar outcomes. The savings of trillions of dollars, the shoring up of our already socialized medicine for seniors, the promise of everybody paying their fair share for insurance but no longer facing the threat of bankruptcy, the assurance that doctors and hospitals will be paid more for the services they provide, and the hope that our emergency rooms will no longer be primary care clinics for the uninsured; it can in no way justify the actions of a few people who dared to make false statements for political gain.

I give up. In fact, these trespasses are so outrageous, that I even give up my past complaints about Republicans and all of the Bush policies. Taking softball questions from planted reporter Jeff Gannon? Forgiven. Lying and exaggerating to drum up support for a war against a non-terrorist-harboring regime that was a natural enemy to a nation that was harboring terrorists? Forgiven. $5 trillion more in debt, growing government to record levels, while government itself provided less? Forgiven. The largest expansion of socialized medicine, Medicare part D, while standing against socialized medicine? Forgiven. Throwing anybody out of presidential speeches who dared wear a T-shirt that supported the troops but not the war (bring them home, etc…)? Forgiven.

Yes, because of this, and because it happened in support of Democratic policies, you are right, I am wrong. We democrats must now climb into holes for the next two-years, nothing we do is correct, no matter how many people agree with the public option, or how necessary we believe it to be.