The Simple Calculation On Health Care Reconciliation

Chris Bowers, over on OpenLeft, proposes the following thought exercise:

Let's play Democratic political strategist for a moment. Which of the following two options do you think would be more popular with voters? Is it:

1. Less expensive, more widely available health care delivered through a partisan legislative process that excludes congressional Republicans;

OR

2. The health care status quo, and a bi-partisan legislative process that includes congressional Republicans?

Perhaps I am missing something, but when it comes to allowing health care reform to go through the budget reconciliation process, that is the basic political calculation Democrats need to make.

Unless you are so far up David Broder's butt that you can only see his intestines, it should be obvious that more voters would prefer cheaper, more widely available health care to bipartisanship any day of the week and twice on Mondays. Bipartisanship is an abstract, vague ideal, while health care costs are very real. If anyone actually chooses bipartisanship instead of more widely available health care, then their priorities are out of whack to the point where they are representing David Broder in Congress, rather than their own constituents.

Amen, brother!

(P.S.: The cartoon is by Horsley, yet another casualty of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer closing.)