GOP introduces bill to repeal HCR law

The vast majority of the bill's provisions haven't even taken effect yet, but the GOP is already jumping on the repeal bandwagon:

House Republican leaders introduced a bill Thursday to repeal and replace the sweeping healthcare law adopted in late March.

According to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the measure would repeal the current law and replace it with the alternative the minority party offered to the original healthcare legislation last November.

You know, why didn't they just replace it with the bill that they put forward in 1993?

Of course, in 1993 the bill was the conservative alternative to the bill created by Hillary's task force. Today it is a socialist scheme to pay for health care for illegals and kill grandma.

Two thirds of Americans want Congress to continue working on HCR bill

Even better, they place more blame on Republicans for the stalemate:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans want Congress to keep trying to pass a health care reform bill, according to a new national poll.

The ABC News/Washington Post survey released Tuesday afternoon also indicates that the public spreads the blame when it comes to a lack of bipartisanship in the nation's capital.

Fifty-eight percent of people questioned in the poll say that congressional Republicans aren't doing enough to seek compromise with President Barack Obama on important issues, with 44 percent feeling that Obama is doing too little to forge compromise with the GOP.

The survey indicates that 56 percent of independent voters say congressional Republicans aren't doing enough to try and work with the president and Democrats in Congress. Half of independents see the president as too unwilling to compromise and 28 percent feel both parties are not doing enough when it comes to bipartisanship.

According to the poll, 63 percent of Americans think federal lawmakers should keep trying to pass a comprehensive health care reform plan, including 88 percent of Democrats questioned, 56 percent of independents and 42 percent of Republicans. Fifty-five percent of Republicans feel Congress should give up on health care reform.

Wow! So will the GOP keep chanting, "Kill the bill!"? It looks like the White House push to paint the GOP as obstructionists is actually working!

Online town hall meetings: a good thing?

The Congressional Management Foundation conducted a study of the effectiveness of online town halls:

CMF conducted most of the online town hall meetings with small groups of 15-25 constituents, but one with a group of nearly 200 constituents. The sessions involved a moderator and a Member of Congress who spoke to constituents via Internet audio. The constituents posed written questions in real time during the meetings.

The sessions, conducted with a diverse group of citizens, resulted in hundreds of online questions contributing to high quality discussions about immigration and detainee policy issues. The sessions were extremely popular with constituents—96 percent said they would like to be included in similar events in the future.

State lawmakers in Washington have held many online town hall meetings in recent years, and legislators in California and Virginia have also held internet or web dialogues with citizens.

I personally feel that there's really no substitute for driving to your local Congressman's office and petitioning him in person, but I think that the online town halls aren't as bad as some make them out to be. For one thing, I'm sure that it goes a long way towards eliminating the mob mentality that we saw on display last summer. People can't get riled up the way that they would when they see their neighbor Jim-Bob get red with anger. Depending on your perspective, that's either a good thing or a bad thing. I think that a mixture of online and in-person town halls would be the best approach for our members of Congress.