Looking Ahead A Few Moves

Let's say that the opt-out public option does indeed pass. Let's game that out.

Sully argues that there's no way Republicans at the state level will opt out of the public option because it's political suicide.

But imagine for a moment that the opt-out public option passes and becomes law (I give it a 65 percent chance at this point). Then what happens? Well, there has to be a debate in every state in which Republicans, where they hold a majority or the governorship, will presumably decide to deny their own voters the option to get a cheaper health insurance plan. When others in other states can get such a plan, will there not be pressure on the GOP to help their own base? Won't Bill O'Reilly's gaffe - when he said what he believed rather than what Roger Ailes wants him to say - be salient? Won't many people - many Republican voters - actually ask: why can't I have what they're having?

John Aravosis wisely disagrees.

Imagine Republicans in red states convincing voters who don't have a lot of money, have precarious jobs if any, have a bad school system, have under-educated and less-than-healthy children, and whose home is about to be foreclosed on - imagine the Republicans being able to convince that voter that abortion and gay marriage are more important than their family's livelihood.

That is the definition of Red State.

Absolutely with Aravosis on this one. If Wingers/Teabaggers/Tenthers/Birthers were governed by logical, enlightened self-interest, they wouldn't be Wingers/Teabaggers/Tenthers/Birthers in the first friggin' place.

Case in point, Dan Riehl's reaction:

The problem is, the bill is quite possibly unconstitutional on its face. It'll see a court challenge before anything else, perhaps even from both sides. If it's constitutional, then a state government would have every right to do away with Medicare, along with several other federal programs, too. Try and rationalize that in a single SCOTUS brief. Somehow I doubt you could unless the court stands ready to take the Federal government apart piece by piece. The court would ultimately be tasked with determining if health care is indeed a constitutional right. Elections have consequences. What do think Sotomayor believes, not that she's much different than the justice she replaced?

And that's exactly how I see this playing out, Republicans will make sure this goes all the way to the top with the intent of using the Bush legacy Roberts court to dismantle as much of the Federal government as possible. It's the Club For Growth's wet dream.

There will be much sturm und drang, and in the end they just may get the Dems they need to Judas the party and kill it outright. But if it does pass somehow, you can bet the legal challenges will begin immediately to the law, with the intent of a 5-4 SCOTUS ruling to basically declare as much of the last 70 years of legislation as unconstitutional.

And that should scare the hell out of all of us.