Republican's Childish Opposition to President Obama's Health Care Reform

Get over your bad selves.

That's basically what former Senate Republican leader Bill Frist told his GOP compadres this week as they set about trying to dismantle the national health care reform law.

"It is not the bill that I would have drafted," he said during an appearance at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. "But it is the law of the land and it is the platform, the fundamental platform, upon which all future efforts to make that system better, for that patient, for that family, will be based."

Frist's high-minded approach to health care reform stood in stark contrast to Republican members of the House of Representatives, who voted unanimously Wednesday to repeal the reform law and replace it with ... what?

That's still unclear, even though it's been 10 months since President Obama signed the legislation into law, and even though Republican candidates campaigned for much of last year on ending "Obamacare."

The repeal bill will now likely perish in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and in any case would almost certainly face a presidential veto if it miraculously made it that far. But House Republicans say they'll still obstruct the health care law by blocking funds to implement its provisions.

It's hard not to think of a bunch of spoiled children throwing a tantrum because they didn't get their way.

The health care reform law, while imperfect, is a done deal. The prudent thing to do at this point is to build on it rather than waste time with fruitless - and needlessly divisive - political grandstanding.

And the Republicans have outdone themselves for misinforming the American people about what the reform law will and will not do.

Conservatives might have ideological differences with some aspects of the reform law. Those differences should be respected.

But House Republicans have no business attempting to undermine a law just because they disagree with parts of it. It's as if Southern lawmakers had tried to block or repeal the Civil Rights Act after it became law in 1964.

They didn't because they had the maturity to accept the new status quo and move on. Today's Republicans should take a lesson from them.

As Frist said, health care reform is the law of the land. Deal with it. Work with it.

Grow up already.

Source: LA Times

Kevin Eason is a freelance editorial cartoonist and illustrator from New Jersey. His brand of satire covers news events in politics, entertainment, sports and much more. Follow him on Facebook.