Chuck Grassley's comments yesterday...

...could mark the turning point in the health care debate and ultimately aid the Democrats and the president in their efforts to bring about reform. Grassley is the Republican senator from Iowa who was thought to be negotiating a bipartisan deal with Max Baucus on the Finance Committee. He and Baucus are said to be friends and, as the leaders of the Group of Six on the committee, have been reportedly trying in earnest to come to some bipartisan agreement on a bill. And bipartisanship has been one of Obama's goals all along.

Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/12/grassley-endorses-death-p_n_257677.html

And Grassley is supposed to be one of the reasonable Republicans! So much for that.

In a best-case scenario, Obama would like to have a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority on the final bill. He desperately wants some Republican ownership in the reform effort. To this end he's been willing to compromise, most notably on the public option, which has been a major point of contention in the debate. The insurance companies, understandably, don't want competition and have donated heavily to both Baucus and Grassley (and everyone else in Congress, for that matter). Liberals, on the other hand, have maintained that reform without a public option is reform in name only. Their advice is to ignore the Republicans and push through legislation on a 51-vote majority (reconciliation). Their argument all along has been that while the Republicans have talked about reform and the need for bipartisanship, their intent has been otherwise. Not only are the Republicans giving mere lip-service to bipartisanship but really want to delay the process and kill reform altogether. As Jim DeMint famously said, "If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." It's about power.

Now along comes Chuck Grassley, who was said to be negotiating in good faith, with this quote about putting granny to death. This is the same sort of silliness that one would expect from a--oh, I don't know--Sarah Palin, not a serious legislator. I think it should be clear now where the Republicans stand on reform: arm-in-arm with the insurance companies and solidly against the public. I think Grassley actually did everyone a favor by exploding the myth of Republican cooperation. It should be easier now to just stop negotiating with the GOP and push the House bill through the Senate on a reconciliation vote. No one need now say that the Republicans wanted to be part of an honest debate.