Once again, Republican legislators and legislators to be in Tennessee, you're dropping the ball.

A Democrat and a Republican teamed up in the Senate on Thursday to offer legislation that would give states the flexibility to implement their own healthcare approaches when the federal overhaul goes into full effect in 2014.

You can't repeal it if you can't replace it.

You break it, you buy it.

To beat the man, you've got to be the man.

Or something like that.

You have the chance with your Republican ultramajority to reestablish Tennessee as a national model of leadership. You must take this opportunity to invent, enact, and implement a health care plan for Tennesseeans that is "at least as effective and affordable." Then we get our Obamacare waiver (and if you push this amendment, not have to wait until 2017) and you get to keep your promise.

Vermont's leaders want these waivers so they can build a single payer program.

The Sanders-Leahy-Welch “State Leadership in Healthcare Act” moves the availability of state waivers from 2017 to 2014.

This state waiver bill will give Vermont and other states the choice to go above and beyond what the federal health care law does by devising their own reforms.

If we work together, I am convinced we can persuade the federal government they should not stand in our way."