Senior Republican promises to repeal health reform

Here's another reason to take your butts to the polls in 2010 and if you want real social change you gotta further weaken the Republican party. By John Byrne In little-noticed comments Sunday, a senior Republican declared that Republicans will repeal Democrats’ efforts to reform healthcare once they retake Congress if it passes.

“If they somehow manage to get the votes and get enough Democrats to walk the plank and commit suicide, in the next Congress, I’ll be chairman Joe Barton of the Energy and Commerce committee, and we’ll repeal it,” ranking House Energy chairman Rep. Joe Barton said.

Analysts say that Republicans don’t have much of a chance at retaking the House. Fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver put the odds of a House GOP takeover at somewhere between 25 and 33 percent.

The Energy and Commerce Committee was among the three in the House that had their hand in crafting healthcare reform. Republicans have grown increasingly intransigent in compromising with Democrats’ proposals, seeing a potential political windfall in public concern over the healthcare debate.

“Take the current bill and just tweak the public option and call it a ‘deal’ — you put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” Barton quipped. “I think this bill’s dead on arrival.”