republican views on health care

i don't understand how this individual mandateis something that we've allowed the republicans to define as some sort of, quote-unquote,government takeover. in fact, it's their idea. the progressives were saying we want single-payer.myself, i would say why do you need insurance companies for health care at all. insuranceis what you buy when you don't know if something bad is going to happen. maybe i'll crash mycar. maybe i won't. i don't know. so i'm going to get car insurance just in case. everybody'sgoing to get sick and die, so you know every single person's going to need health insurance.that's not something you can provide insurance for, that's called a service. so my view, single-payer. the republicansalways said, no, that's too much government.

so we came back and said, okay, no single-payer.how about a public option? so you'd a public program, everybody could join medicare orcompete with the private companies, too much government. we want individual responsibility.so we said, fine, you win. we'll do it your way, individual mandate. and then, they saythat is a socialist government takeover. well, hold on a second now. you're now a part ofthe pro-moocher caucus? you're saying it's okay for people to just dive bomb their wayinto the emergency room? yeah, don't worry about it. don't get any insurance. the governmentwill pay for it. now, you're like the pro-freeloader party? this republican party, from my point of view,has taken the posture that any idea, even

their own ideas, if they're championed bythis president, they will oppose. and i think that discredits them. it's like chasing abunny on the old dog track. they have a mechanical bunny. if you've ever been to a dog track,i'm from tennessee, if you ever go to memphis, they have a dog track and they have a mechanicalbunny. and they open the gates and the dogs just go and try and chase that mechanicalbunny. and i think those dogs probably think someday they're going to catch that bunny.they're never going to catch that bunny because the bunny keeps moving. you're trying to chase the right to try toconvince them to agree with you. they will run away from their own ideas if they thinka democrat embraces them. it was a republican

idea to have cap and trade, a market-based,business-friendly solution for carbon and climate problems. that was the heritage foundationthat came up with cap and trade. we were saying carbon tax. to chase them, we moved to capand trade and they moved on to don't do anything. climate change isn't even real. on health care, it was their idea to havean individual mandate and personal responsibility and don't have a big government single-payersystem. we moved from single-payer through public option to individual mandate tryingto catch them and now they say that the individual mandate is socialism. you will never catchthis bunny. you will never, so what you need to do is stand for what you believe in andbring a majority around your own ideas and

govern. and it's the biggest fallacy on thepart of liberals is that that little hound dog running around that track is ever goingto catch that bunny and that we will ever be able to compromise enough to appease theright wing in this country so they'll actually govern with us in a responsible way. theyhave to be defeated at the ballot box by a stable governing majority that can implementthe changes that we need in this country, whether they want to participate or not.