EDITORIAL: Shut out in Senate

May 09--Most politicians at least pay lip service to the notion of bipartisanship. Not U.S. Sen. Ed Markey. So drenched is Markey in the partisanship that fuels the nation's capital, where he has lived and worked since the first days of the Carter administration, that he isn't even feigning interest in working with Republicans to fix Obamacare.

"For many of these Republicans, if you kicked them in the heart, you would break your toe. They don't care," he said at an event yesterday. "The only thing they care about is dismantling these programs, taking the money and handing it over as tax breaks to the wealthiest in our country."

A political fundraiser? Nope. It was an official appearance, at the office of Health Care for All, where advocates condemned House passage of the American Health Care Act.

Now, the junior senator may be correct when he says the House-approved AHCA is "dead on arrival" in the Senate. The upper branch plans to draft its own version.

Just don't count on Markey -- or U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who predicted death and destruction with passage of the House bill -- to have any say in what emerges. Those Republicans hobbling around with broken toes won't be racing to seek the input of colleagues who refuse to acknowledge the obvious cracks running through Obamacare.

Here in Massachusetts a top Democrat on Sunday acknowledged that even our groundbreaking health care reform law was "compromised" by Obama-care. Massachusetts was forced to make changes to adapt, Senate President Stan Rosenberg said during an interview with WBZ. (Those changes have cost the state budget dearly.)

Rosenberg is no fan of repealing Obamacare, of course. But he is counting on the U.S. Senate "to do the right thing and make sure that if a plan moves forward it's rational, reasonable and doesn't gut the budgets and the programs in the various states," he said.

Sounds like a job for the state's two senators. Alas Markey and Warren seem more interested in perfecting their zingers.

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