Why are we still debating healthcare?

Last year, Republicans hammered President Obama for not focusing on job creation and instead worrying about healthcare. Then they got themselves elected in droves by talking about how they were going to fix the economy by cutting the deficit.

A day after they've taken over the House of Representatives, what do you think Republicans have done? They've started talking about healthcare. Remember how important job creation was? Remember how important closing the deficit was? Are Republicans hypocrites or simply forgetful?

Despite the fact that repealing the healthcare law has nothing to do with job creation - the Republicans have farcically called their proposition "Repealing the Job Killing Health Care Act" - and that the repeal of the law would actually increase the deficit substantially over the next decade, Republicans have plowed ahead. Imagine lambasting Democrats because they focused on healthcare rather than jobs and then doing the same thing. Like Democrats, Republicans are trying to focus on healthcare as an aspect of the economy, which it certainly is. Unlike Democrats, Republicans have their story wrong.

The answer to the question, why are we still debating healthcare is simple: Republicans must save face. After all, communist healthcare was supposed to mean the death of America, or at the very least the death of grandma. Fiscal armageddon meets death panels. It was a grim prospect for sure.

Instead we got reform of the insurance companies that happens to be extremely popular. Forecasts of the laws effect on the budget estimate that it will save over 100 billion over the next decade. These forecasts, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, drew the ire of Representative Eric Cantor who accused the CBO of catering to Democrat's wishes. The Congressional Budget Office is apparently only nonpartisan when it suits Republican needs, when forecasting budget reduction for a Democratic president it another left-leaning group of communists.

Put simply, the healthcare law in its first year has been nothing but a success. The laws protecting the rights of sick Americans who in the past have been screwed by insurance companies are not only popular but necessary. The contentious part of the law, the mandate on insurance doesn't kick in until 2014 and the fate of that mandate will probably be decided by the Supreme Court, though it's worth pointing out that the mandate is the focal point of all the projected savings. By repealing the healthcare law, Republicans add to the deficit and repeal the new found rights of America's sick and ailing.

So we'll continue to debate what is now a law that aids Americans and cuts our deficit. As I write, the CBO released a new report citing that repeal of the healthcare law would cost the country over 200 billion dollars. The law saved 100 billion, repealing it would add 200 billion to the deficit, you do the math, unless your name is John Boehner or Eric Cantor. Meanwhile, out of work Americans will continue to wonder when and how their government will help them out.

So while Cantor and Boehner live in a dream world in which the Congressional Budget Office only plays by the rules when it finds in their favor, in which forcing insurance companies to end the practice of pre-existing conditions constitutes "fiscal armageddon," and in which their plan for America's future is to...oh wait, they don't have a plan for America's future. Scratch all that. While Republicans continue to debate a healthcare law that is everything they said it wouldn't be, isn't it time they started doing what the accused Democrats of not doing all along and focus on the economy?

Of course, I should be careful what I wish for as it seems likely that Republicans will only find a way to make that mess worse too.