Over the last couple of years, Republicans have offered numerous proposals for how to reform the health care marketplace in America. In every single case, you, Senator Reid, and Congresswoman Pelosi have told the Republicans, in effect, to go pound sand.
"The presidential election was a referendum on Obamacare and you lost!" Republicans were admonished. "Obamacare is the law of the land, was upheld by the Supreme Court, and cannot be delayed, changed, or repealed!" your Democratic talking heads shouted.
But now, with the healthcare.gov website in shambles, with the number of canceled insurance policies far greater than the number of new enrollees in Obamacare, and with Democratic approval ratings cratering and the threat of a disaster in the 2014 midterm elections hanging over your heads, you and other members of your party are proposing at the eleventh hour that radical administrative and/or legislative changes be made to the Obamacare legislation that you insisted could never be altered.
These changes are so extensive that it is questionable whether they are even consistent with the principles the law was founded on. Furthermore, these changes have been conceived in such a rush and so obviously as a result of Democratic political imperatives rather than through any kind of rational deliberation that they threaten to take an already chaotic situation and make it even more confused and uncertain.
Millions of Americans have had their insurance policies canceled or their premiums raised. They are being told that if they don't have health insurance by early next year they will be fined. And yet, they cannot even use the crippled website you assured them would be available to them so they could "comparison shop" for new coverage. All this has been brought upon us by you and the Democratic Party alone. Remember: not a single Republican lawmaker voted in favor of Obamacare. And now that you have brought the American health care system to the brink of disaster, you arrogantly insist that we all jump to our feet and support you as you blunder like a drunken sailor down your newest policy path. Once again you will be demanding, I am sure, that we need to pass your new proposals so we can find out what's in them.
Obamacare has been plagued from the outset by a lack of bipartisan support and serious consideration of the best ideas from all sides. I am confident that if you will be willing to sit down with Republican congressional leaders and discuss in a rational manner their entire range of objections to Obamacare, they will be quite willing to cooperate with you. In the meantime, since the mess you have created threatens so many people as deadlines approach, it is obvious that all of Obamacare needs to be scrapped and we need to start over, together.
If, however, you are unwilling to sit down with Republicans and are unwilling to listen to their ideas and incorporate some of their suggestions into new healthcare legislation well, then, Mr President, it's time for you to go pound sand.
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