GOP focus: Sabotage health reform, Obama

I'm really tired of hearing extreme right-wing pundits like Charles Krauthammer (March 7, “Onward with ObamaCare, regardless of views”) say that President Obama is ramming health care through. It passed the House and the Senate as well with a 60-40 supermajority.

The far right never complained when President Bush used reconciliation to ram through two sets of tax cuts for the wealthy. In the Bush administration, a majority vote was all that was needed. Republicans have used reconciliation more times than Democrats over the years.

The midterm elections, as well as President Obama's approval rating, will rest largely on what happens with health care. Despite other major accomplishments of this administration - credit card reform, reversing restrictions on stem cell research, expanding loan programs for small businesses, banning lobbyist gifts to executive employees, new investment in alternative energy, weatherizing a million homes a year, the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, among others - it will all come down to health care. That is why Republicans are desperate to sabotage it, even if it harms the American people.

Todd Grimshaw

Coralville