One of my neighbors...

...is a partner at a downtown law firm. One morning he was telling me about the difficulty his firm was having with some of their clients. It seems that they were balking at paying their bills on time. He said they often call back and ask about this item or that item until he finally says, "If that's all that's bothering you then just deduct that from the bill and pay the rest!"

"Makes sense," I said. "Does it work?"

"Hell, no! Mike, you have to understand: they don't want to pay their bill. They're just using those as excuses."

I'll be darned.

I'm reminded of this story by the current debate over health care reform and some of the objections being raised by its opponents. The latest one is this distortion over the "end of life" proposals; you know, the "death panels" that Sarah Palin dreamed up in her pretty little head. While Chuck Grassley said yesterday that they had been dropped from consideration, I'm tempted to ask (like my neighbor), "If we dropped all of the offending pieces of this legislation, would you then be in favor of health care reform? Because the current system isn't working for most people." And I can't help thinking that the answer would still be "no." Because, like my neighbor's clients, they're just making excuses. They don't want health care reform. Either it runs counter to their ideology or it offends their lobbyists or it stands in the way of their path back to power. So let's be clear: there ain't no way, no how that some of these people are ever going to vote for health care reform.