Chuck did it

Now that health reform is truly and finally over, no take backsies and no do overs, we're finally starting to see some of the GOP messaging form for their election campaign later in the year. Aside from all the veiled calls to violence and apocalyptic musings, the main message is centered around repeal.

To which the Democratic response has been "Sure! Which part do you want to argue for repealing in an election: the parts about preexisting coverage, the parts about covering children, the parts about discrimination, the parts that cut the deficit, or the parts that make health care cheaper?" The President almost peed himself laughing at the thought of it. Some of the more honest Republicans have admitted that repealing the bill is pretty much impossible as long as Obama is in the White House and that this is all effectively a big circle jerk in an echo chamber. Even the phony lawsuits, mostly filed by state AG's trying to run for higher office, are centered on the one same main theme: getting people riled up and angry without any real intent to do what you say you're going to do.

But former Gang of Six GOP negotiator and death panel aficionado Chuck Grassley is deciding to take another road.

In the memo send out to reporters by his staff on on the Senate Finance Commitee, Grassley claims that the bill will ensure that "Congress, the IRS, and the public will now
have additional tools and information to ensure that charitable hospitals act charitably."

There's a reason the bill is so good when it comes to hospitals, Grassley's staff writes -- bipartisanship.

"The health care legislation signed into law yesterday includes provisions Grassley co-authored to impose standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals for the first time," his Finance Committee press staff writes.

Yeah, he's praising the bill and trying to take credit for it. Uh-oh, looks like someone is going to be put in crosshairs on Sarah Palin's Facebook page. RELOAD!

You know I think this is going to go the way of the stimulus. Republicans decry the measure as not working and then go home to stand in front of big checks and tout jobs that they and they alone have brought to their district and state by means of the magical incantation of STIM-HYOO-LUSS and the waving of a wand. I guess Grassley thinks this think might be popular once the talk of killing granny and defiling her corpse out of the equation. We'd just like to congratulate Chuck on the new land speed record he set for backtracking. I hope he didn't get any severe whiplash or neck injuries from the sudden directional change. Ahh fuck it, he's got health care, it doesn't matter.