Even Heath Shuler says he’ll not vote to repeal health care reform legislation.
Mike Ross? He and an Oklahoma (naturally) Democrat are the only two committed to voting for repeal. That puts Ross on the side of Arkansas’s three Republican congressmen.
“I voted against it three times, so I don’t know why I would vote not to repeal it,” Ross told POLITICO. “It’s consistent with what I’ve done. It seems pretty simple to me.”
But to the seven Democrats leaning against repeal, the math is more complex. This group includes Shuler, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, Daniel Lipinski of Illinois, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Larry Kissell of North Carolina and Jim Matheson of Utah.
In interviews with POLITICO, some of the Democrats said there are enough good provisions in the law that it would be difficult to pull everything away from voters now. Others dismissed the effort as political theater put on for the tea party activists who propelled House Republicans into power. And yet others said repeal wouldn’t resolve any of the concerns they had about the bill in the first place.
Such thoughtfulness has never been a characteristic of Mike Ross. Ross doesn’t care how many sick people now qualify for insurance or how many children and poor people will be helped. He doesn’t care how much more the government will spend if repeal were to pass, which it won’t. He could be part of the solution. But that would require courage. Ross is no profile in courage. From his first days in the state legislature, he’s been in the tank for every popular prejudice, every bit of uninformed Limbaugh-style propaganda. He’d rather parrot the noisy aginners’ catch phrase of the day than point voters to a better way. He is a disgrace to the Democratic Party.