Heatlh Care Reform

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent summarizes a new McClatchy-Marist poll:

Sizable majorities don't want repeal of the provisions that allow people up to age 26 to stay on their parents' plans, prevent discrimination against people with preexisting conditions, and close the prescription drug "donut hole." What's more, overall, the poll finds just as many want the law to be expanded to do more (35 percent) as want repeal (33 percent).

Now, the poll does find serious hostility to the individual mandate, with 65 percent agreeing with the widely held GOP position that it's unconstitutional to require people to buy health insurance. In other words, you'll likely see Republicans making a great deal of noise about the individual mandate -- denouncing it as "tyranny," joining lawsuits to overturn it, and so forth -- while quietly refraining from any genuine efforts to succeed at gutting or watering down the law's popular provisions.

Not ridiculous in any way:

Some Missouri legislators disagree. Representative Todd Akin, of Town and Country, called the health care bill "a threat from within and a danger from Washington D.C."

Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder agreed. "This is Pelosi versus the people," he stated, "and we stand with the people." Kinder went on to say that he believed democratic measures [sic] for health care would turn the country "into something that is unrecognizable" from the country he and members of the assembled crowd grew up with.

What, exactly, does Kinder think he'll be unable to recognize?  The all-American joy of being uninsured?  Budget-busting insurance rate increases?