Scott Brown as Healthcare's foe?

It was nearly four years ago (April 4, 2006 to be exact) when the Massachusetts legislature approved a bill requiring ALL residents to purchase health insurance or face legal penalties. The bill, supported and signed into law by then governor Mitt Romney, would make Massachusettes the first state in the country to try and take on the problem of insufficient coverage for its residents in much the same way it approaches that of automobiles. With huge bi-partisan support, the bill sailed through the House on a 154-2 margin and through the Senate without a single nay vote (37-0).

The plan is without question a virtual carbon copy of the health insurance mandate being hashed together at present behind closed doors by the progressives currently in power in Washington. And, just as is suspected in the Federal plan, the plan in Massachusettes has had deletarious fiscal consequences since it was put into action.

The recent "upset" in Massachusettes wherein Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley for the senate seat long held by the Democrat Ted Kennedy is being heralded by the Republican pundintry and the party's following as a huge victory serving as some sort of modern day "shot heard around the world". And while it is true that Brown's election tips the senate scale to such that the Democrats fail to garner their desirable filibuster proof majority, they still do in fact hold the majority in both the House and Senate.

But, what is even more telling is the reading of the election tea leaves by the Republican pundintry and the party's followers in their want to proclaim Brown's victory as some sort of crystal clear message aimed at thwarting Obama and progressive Democrat's healthcare intentions, if nothing else. To be certain, it is a message which is at best caked with mud.

Because, the unfortunate reality is that, while the Republican pundintry and its following remains smitten about Brown's election victory (and its symbolic electoral meaning) and the potential for yet more come November, Scott Brown was a Massachusettes state senator in April of 2006 and one of 37 who cast his vote in favor of the state's newly mandated health insurance policy.

Hmmm....the election of a candidate who supported a state health insurance mandate serving as a wakeup to Democrats who favor a Federal health insurance mandate?...

Forgive me for not seeing anything emblematic of Waterford.

However, in Scott Brown's defense, he does indeed have validity in citing Federalism and the right of the state's to dictate their own policies (however half hazzard they may in fact come to be) without the strongarm of Washington thwarting the will of the people.

But, let us not dismiss outright the very real possibility that what the Republican establishment presently finds opposition to is merely a government takeover of healthcare instituted by the opposition party. We need only look to Medicare Part D for evidence of this.