In a way, Republicans share much of the blame for this legislation. Many of the arguments they are making right now against nationalized health care, are issues they could have addressed when they had complete power. Remember, for six years they had the House, they had the Senate, the Presidency, and they had a majority on the Supreme Court.
What did they do to address the issue of rising health care costs? Nothing. In fact, during the Bush Administration, I seem to
remember the issue of "allowing" American citizens to buy prescription drugs from Canada because they are cheaper. The GOP stood in the way of this because they argued that without the protection of the FDA, the U.S. government couldn't guarantee the safety of Canadian drugs. This was nanny-statism at it's very finest, and the Republicans are guilty of this just as much as Democrats depending on the issue.
Granted, they didn't have that critical 100 seat majority in the Senate, which according to apologists for the GOP, was vital to be able to get anything done. At the very least, couldn't someone in the Republican Party introduced legislation to make health care costs for individuals tax deductable the way they are for employers? That's one of the best retorts against any argument for nationalized health care today. But why didn't anyone have the forsight to attempt this when they had the chance?
That's why I have no love for the Republicans. It's always a day late and a dollar short for these guys. Just like last year with skyrocketing gas prices, they had complete control of everything for six years to make a serious push for domestic gas drilling -- yet we heard nothing from them on that issue when they had the power to do something about it. We're seeing the same thing with health care. Didn't anyone realize that this was going to be a major issue for the Democrats when the gavel came back into their hands? Couldn't the Republicans have done
something to try to put out this fire before it got out of hand?