Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama, Health Care Debate
They may have lost control in one chamber of Congress, after absorbing a shellacking at the polls in November's mid-term elections, but Democrats are telling their Republican counterparts don't even think of messing with health care reform.
In a letter to House Speaker-elect John Boehner, who has vowed to roll back major portions of President Barack Obama's chief legislative victory thus far, Senate Democrats said that they will block any Republican effort to repeal the overhaul of health care laws.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada (pictured), along with Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Patty Murray of Washington, wrote that health care reform is too important and too beneficial to too many Americans to be used as a political football between the political parties.
Democrats are right that health care reform is an important piece of legislation; however, can anyone really expect Republicans not to try and whittle it down piecemeal with the help of their new majority in the House of Representatives.
In fact, Republicans can truthfully argue that the promise of repealing health care reform was what helped them rally their troops for their impressive victories in November's elections. Simply put, Democrats didn't turn out in numbers nor vote with the enthusiasm needed to protect Democratic gains won in the first two years of President Obama's administration.
So Reid and friends can try to bully Boehner all they want, but it's unlikely to stop Republicans from at least trying to weaken and eventually kill the health reform package.