After much of the hullabaloo involving Minority Leader Boehner's much anticipated amendment/bill, which does absolutely nothing to fix the problems with out health care system, even Republicans are admitting that their solution won't go anywhere.
Rep. Trent Franks (R), the lovably (not!) kooky congressman from AZ-02 has consistently been an opponent of any Democratic reform. Yes, the man who believes that Muslims are secretly planning to infiltrate congress, is surprisingly against real reforms that will help average Americans deal with the ongoing health insurance and health care crisis.
After a rather brief call to the good Rep. Franks' office to ask about Boehner's bill, I was surprised to learn that even the aides in his office view the bill as a non-starter. Of course, the reason why they view it this way has nothing to do with the content of the bill- instead they choose to blame the Democrats refusal to allow them even votes on their sponsored bills.
But I believe that even though they can't get their insurance company handout bill to the floor, absolutely no one, not even the TEA party enablers will support it. Why, you ask? The bill itself is the most obvious and egregious evidence of half-baked Republican ideas without any thought for consequence.
Take, for example, the idea of selling insurance across state lines. Sounds good in principle, right? You know, especially since the US constitution allows for the congress to regulate interstate trade. Interestingly, this bill foregos that in favor of - get this - imposing a single state's laws and regulations regarding that insurance on any state where that insurance is sold, effectively eviscerating states' rights on how to protect their own citizens. Now, imagine every health insurance company moving to the least regulated and lobbyist dominated state, and you can see how well this will end.
There is still much truth to the fact that this bill is a lemon- if Republican congressional offices have such little interest in the bill (it was only one of 35, the aide said) of the LEADER of the Republican party in the House, then it isn't a far stretch that even they believe that these inane 'bills' are non-starters.