Jim McGovern’s statement in the Rules Committee session on health care should be echoed by every Democrat in Washington. He rebuts a number of points:

• Republicans have been whining about how there’s been no committee hearings on this bill, which is nonsense. They’re getting off on a technicality, as the House leadership has blended the three bills numbered HR 3200 into HR 3962. In actuality, the relevant committees held hundreds of hearings and markups, and practically all of that work is featured in the bill. By contrast, the Medicare Part D process featured 1 (one) hearing.

• He looks at the Republican health care bill as it is, and uses the CBO analysis which destroyed it yesterday. He notes that “The Democratic bill covers 12 times as many people, and saves $30 billion more” to the deficit. That’s pretty simple.

• He notes that the Republicans dealt with health care when they were in power by saying “Take two tax breaks and call me in the morning.”

• He directly takes on the health care bill being compared to terrorism – and denounced it – with Virginia Foxx (who made the statement) in the room. When Foxx makes a separate point that Medicaid patients visit the emergency room at higher rates than the uninsured, McGovern snapped, “I thank the gentlelady for making the case for keeping more people uninsured. I don’t agree with it.”

It would be nice if more Democrats were armed with the information that Rep. McGovern has, to knock down this nonsense and fight the smears.