Attempting to Rip Gays, Michael Steele Backs Into Endorsement of Single-Payer Healthcare

After a year of economists blathering that wage disparities, cheap foreign labor, and a worldwide recession were to blame for the demise of America's small businesses, RNC Chairman Michael Steele has finally cut through all the intellectual elitism and identified the real culprit:

Gay marriage.

Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday...

"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

You've gotta hand it to Steele. Nothing says big tent party quite like "you just cost me money."

Politics Daily's own Tommy Christopher was all over this story when it broke, and points out that gay marriages wouldn't be the only ones that "just cost Steele money." By the chairman's logic, straight marriages already do!

You see, Steele appears to be referring to the healthcare costs that businesses are obligated to subsidize for their employees under our current system. A pro-business solution to this problem would be eliminating all employer burdens in the healthcare system and switch to single-payer care as many of our western allies have already done.

Unfortunately single-payer health care seems like a pipe dream at this stage, due to vociferous opposition by interest groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Moneyed Hospital CEOs and some guy named Michael Steele, who had this to say while running for U.S. Senate in 2006:

Who pays for universal health insurance? Who pays for socialized medicine? I don't need government dictating to me when I go to the doctor, which doctor I go to, how much is going to be paid for my health care. That's not the America I want to live in.

No, the America that this 2006 Senate candidate wants to live in is one where small businesses are obligated to subsidize healthcare costs for their employees and their spouses. Sounds like he has some issues to work out with the guy who addressed the Georgia Republicans on Saturday.