Free Republic

Various representatives of the Barack Obama administration were out on the Sunday talk shows in the U.S. today, trying to spin the election of Senator Scott Brown (R -MA) [and how often do you see that abbreviation?] as being an endorsement of the Obama agenda, particularly with regard to health care. I witnessed the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, on "Fox News Sunday," trying to do this very thing. Gibbs was making the very same kinds of arguments to host Chris Wallace as Howard Dean tried making a few days ago to MSNBC's Chris Matthews. Wallace was a lot...

Besides the occasional Republican either voting for socialized medicine or preventing a filibuster of it, the guilt of the association with the proposal that passed the Senate and the GOP is very deep. In fact the recent bill, without the public option (but will force people into public care) looks increasingly like the failed experiment of Massachusetts.

As haggling between House and Senate versions of national health care reform gets under way in Washington, Massachusetts residents may be feeling a bit of dejà vu. The insurance mandates and cost controls being negotiated on Capitol Hill are the same polarizing issues that echoed in Beacon Hill chambers three years ago. In 2006, then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed the nation's most ambitious and complex health reform initiative with the goal of providing universal health care coverage to all Massachusetts residents. Like the bill taking shape in Congress, the state's health legislation required all residents to obtain health insurance or face...