and among democrats in mike ross district, democrats were in favor of the public option by a walloping 74%. that s the hardball context in which the specifics of our new health care system women ill bed worked out among democrats. republicans are not a big part of the legislative process. even orrin hatch today offered an amendment to the baucus health care bill singling out and i quote, any state with a name that begins with the letter u to get special federal health care assistance. when your policy suggests could double as skits about the alphabet on sesame street it may be fair to say you re not doing heavy lifting in developing legislation. even as republicans become more and more irrelevant to the content of any health reform bill, they are launching new attacks on the whole idea of reform itself. and they re scary. they said it was a secret plot to kill old people and take away veterans health care and a secret plot to deny health care specifically to republicans an