Chuck Grassley touts provisions he authored in health bill he voted against

By Michael D. Shear
WashPost

President Obama's senior advisers believe the new health-care law will be good politics for them.

Could they be right?

For all the unified, angry rhetoric from Republicans lately, there is some evidence of cracks in the GOP wall of opposition.

Take, for example, the following e-mail from the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who had mocked the health-care legislation, gave encouragement to the "death panel" accusation, and abandoned bipartisan negotiations.

"The health-care legislation signed into law yesterday includes provisions Grassley co-authored to impose standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals for the first time," he said. "The provisions enacted in the new health-care law are the result of Grassley's leadership on tax-exempt organizations' accountability and transparency, including hospitals."

Yes, that's Grassley taking credit for the health-care bill. The same bill that some of his Republican colleagues say they want to repeal. The same bill that 13 Republican attorneys general say is unconstitutional.

"That Senator Grassley, who infamously declared that health reform would 'kill Grand Ma' and walked away from the negotiating table, would take credit for anything in this legislation is the most extreme form of hypocrisy imaginable," said Brad Woodhouse, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

(Original here.)