The Democrats have been doing a victory lap this week over their defeat of the Republicans in the battle for health care reform.  So weird, I thought the parties were supposed to work together, not duke it out until the bitter end. But I guess all things are fair in love and war, and politics is a bit (or a lot) of both. So a battle it was.

Have I mentioned that the Democrats passed the bill without the majority support of their constituents?  Or that not a single Republican voted for it? Or that they resorted to deceitful trickery in the worst ends-justifying-the-means scheme I’ve ever personally witnessed?  That’s bipartisanship at it’s best, all right.

But the funny thing about facts — they’re stubborn things.  President Obama can say “this bill will reduce the deficit” until the unicorns come home, but it won’t make it any less untrue.  The bill is full of twice counted money, doesn’t include the thousands and thousands of government employees that will need to be hired to enforce the darn thing, and it assumes that revenue will continue to increase in the worst economy in a generation just as a massive health care tax is levied upon employers.

The mostly glaringly obvious discrepency is the fact that it includes 10 years of revenue, but only six years of pay outs.  What happens in 2020? Do we only get health care in years ending 4-9? So many questions, never any answers.

Congressman John Dingell (D-NY) was on a radio show in Chicago this week, and host Paul Smith asked him why the coverage wouldn’t be implemented until 2014. You know, in light of the urgency with which it was forced upon us unwilling tax-payers.

The telling response (emphasis mine):

“We’re not ready to be doing it. This has been going on for years…The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re passing legislation that will cover 300 million American people in different ways, it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”

Not sure about the rest of you, but I don’t relish the idea of being controlled. Seriously. Ask my husband. Or my dad. I believe his exact words to my new husband at our wedding were, “She’s yours now!”

One of my favorite movie lines ever is from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when Toula’s mom is explaining to her why being the head of the house isn’t everything: “The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.”

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that on a blog that feeds into my hubby’s RSS feeder. Oh well, it’s not like it’s a humongous secret. But my point is that I don’t like other people trying to control me. I don’t want them limiting my choices on what kind of food to buy, where to send my kids to school, or whether or not I need a certain kind of health insurance.

Rep. Dingell went on to say:

“Our Republicans have spent a long time not participating, not helping, carping and delaying.”

I don’t know about you, but that makes me proud to be a Republican. They won’t be able to blame us one bit when this ship goes down in flames. And for the record, Dingell-berry, Republicans were shut out of the entire process, aside from a one day *Health Summit* in which the GOP pretty much shredded the bill and wiped the Liberals off the floor with it.

Which reminds me — I need to write another love letter, uh, I mean letter of support to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). He broke down the financial impact so well that President Obama looked absolutely confused. As in, “Huh. That actually made sense. But I wonder if he’s including the money from the cash tree out back? Do I tell him about that or keep it a secret? I better ask Rahm.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a glass of wine. Before the government takes that away too, for my own good.