Southern GOPers: Here's to your health!

I HAPPENED to watch a handful of southern and southwestern Republican congressmen on C-SPAN this morning making a fuss over their God-sent health care reform proposals. They wanted you to know that their only true motive in opposing the Obama administration's plan was their deep concern for the American people, particularly those who are out of work, indigent and not covered by a dime's worth of insurance. They didn't see how any plan but theirs could actually "reform" health care - a plan that would control costs, spread the insurance around and give all of us an option to choose whatever path we preferred to follow. Just below the surface, however, is the GOP's protection of the health insurance industry , which is paying off a lot of congressmen on both sides of the aisle to keep the status quo.

Insofar as the cost of the administration's single payer plan is a major talking point for the Party of No, shouldn't somebody mention that health care costs shot up unmercifully when Medicare became mired in countless private insurance plans. Figures I've seen say the actual administrative cost of Medicare was about three percent; after the insurance industry cut into the pie, administrative costs of your health insurance coverage rose to beyond 20 percent. Anybody care to explain the difference?

But hearing the handsomely insured GOP group defend Americans' right to "freedom of choice" (except for abortion, of course) in selecting a plan free of the government, I am again reminded of the age-old saying that "Republicans are for a lot of things - but not very much."

As I have written time again, the Republicans had their chance with GOP presidents and congressional majorities to take up the challenge of our health care crisis - and did nothing. So why should we believe that they are our saviors now?