You know what really yanks my chain? Hypocrisy. Especially when it comes in the form of political theater. Every time a politician has some sound bite that is played repeatedly in the media and never gets challenged by said media makes me wince in barely suppressed indignation. This indignation has been happening a lot more recently thanks to all the lovely sound bites from Republican leaders in Congress explaining why they’re against the Democratic health care reform proposals.

Take for example this quotation from Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican in his statement to the press following Obama’s health care summit: “We have a very difficult gap to bridge here. We just can’t afford this. That’s the ultimate problem.” Oh really Mr. Cantor? You are against health care reform that would give millions of Americans health insurance, would prevent insurance companies from denying people coverage due to pre-existing conditions and help contain the skyrocketing costs of premiums because it would be too expensive? Well then, what were you doing when President Bush single-handedly turned a CBO projected $5 trillion surplus into nearly $6 trillion of debt?

I know what Rep. Cantor and other prominent Republican leaders such as Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were doing. They were rubberstamping President Bush’s two wars, his tax cuts for the very wealthy and watched as the financial markets collapsed all around them thanks in part to their removal and opposition to stricter regulations of banks. And now, after all these costs have been pushed onto the future generations, these same people who allowed this massive deficit to mount under President Bush are saying they cannot support President Obama’s health care proposal because it costs too much?

Even the idea that the Democratic health care proposal would add to the deficit isn’t accurate. The CBO noted on Nov 5, 2009, that the Democratic proposal from the House (that has the public option) would yield a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $129 billion over the 2010-2019 period. The Republican Party had nearly eight years of control of both the House and Senate, and all they were able to accomplish was an unfunded $1 trillion drug program and its now infamous “donut hole” that the Democratic proposal seeks to fix.

There is a word for such blatant skullduggery and deceitfulness. That word is BULLSHIT. It is bullshit for people who have repeatedly allowed the government to run up massive deficits to turn around and state they are against the Democratic health care plan because it “costs too much.” Let me tell you something that costs too much: tax cuts for the rich, a war sold to us on lies and deceit and a $1 trillion prescription drug program (Medicare Part D) all being paid for on deficit spending.

Former Vice President Cheney once famously stated that “deficits don’t matter.”

Apparently, they only matter when Democrats are in charge, never when Republicans are running the show. It’s too bad for the Republican Party that Americans are not so gullible as to buy this line of reasoning. The time for real change of our health care system is now—many millions of uninsured Americans cannot wait any longer.

Now that Democrats have the opportunity to create meaningful health care reform, they have to seize this opportunity. Republicans have demonstrated during this health care debate that even when the Democrats include parts of what they want in their proposal, such as tort reform and purchasing insurance across state lines, that they still won’t be satisfied enough with the bill to vote for it. Democrats have repeatedly attempted to compromise with Republicans to try and get a bipartisan bill passed. If Republicans are too concerned with sticking with their party to pass meaningful reform for health care, that’s too bad for them. Hopefully Democrats can seize the moment and deliver on the promise of the Affordable Health Care for America Act and provide real change for a broken health care system.