A TASTE OF THEIR OWN MEDICINE

Sorry -- I'm Gatesed out. I haven't posted on the president's statement because I've got nothing left to say. I'd rather talk about this:

... several female Republican House members held a press conference [yesterday] to attack President Obama's push for health insurance reform....

Perhaps the most attention-grabbing moment occurred when Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) announced that "there are no Americans who don’t have healthcare":

..."There are no Americans who don't have healthcare. Everybody in this country has access to healthcare," she says. "We do have about 7.5 million Americans who want to purchase health insurance who can not afford it," she says....

Unfortunately, Foxx is not the first conservative to push this argument. In July 2007, then-President Bush claimed that "people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."...

Yup, and others who've made the same argument include Tom DeLay, Bush-era Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, the architect of John McCain's campaign health plan, John Goodman, and Arizona GOP congressman John Shadegg. And that's a very, very incomplete list.

OK -- so I'm hearing lately that, at town-hall meetings, crowds are bursting into applause whenever a member of the audience says, Well, if the Obama health care plan is so great, will you members of Congress all pledge to join it?

So here's what I say: If you're a Republican opponent of health care reform and you say we already have universal coverage because emergency rooms exist, will youpledge to give up your own health insurance and take advantage of this swell form of health care? If it's perfectly adequate, can we ask you to do that?