To hear Dan Sullivan tell it, Sen. Mark Begich cast "the deciding vote" in favor of Obamacare.
That is, unless you believe the TV ads in Arkansas, where "Mark Pryor cast the deciding vote to make you live under Obamacare."
Or Louisiana, where "Mary Landrieu cast the deciding vote for Obamacare."
Or New Hampshire, where "things got much worse after Sen. Shaheen cast the deciding vote for Obamacare."
Or Montana, West Virginia, North Carolina, Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, etc., etc., all states with senators who cast "the deciding vote."
According to the Republican Party, each of the 60 Democrats who voted for the Affordable Care Act in December 2009 qualifies as "the decider."
The GOP logic works like this: The measure needed 60 votes to avoid being stopped by a filibuster, so every Democrat had "the deciding vote."
It works only if you talk about one senator at a time. Where the argument fails apart is that it is impossible for every one of the 60 senators to have cast the 60th and deciding vote.
This is not a Seattle Seahawks game in which every fan is "the 12th man."
If he wants to be accurate, Sullivan should say that Begich's vote was decisive. And that the Affordable Care Act would not have become law without Begich, who cast the sixth "yes" vote. His was one of the deciding votes.
Sullivan doesn't put it that way because it lacks the rhetorical punch of portraying Begich as the singular senator who cast the 60th vote to put it over the top. Plus, the pattern was well established in other states, starting two years ago.
The real decision here, however, is not what happened in the recent past but what's to be done about health care in America now.
Begich says he is focused on improving the law and fixing flaws, which is the sensible option. Sullivan says he wants to "repeal and replace," which is more slogan than strategy. The law is not going to be repealed .
The focus ought to be on specifics, which present difficult and costly choices.
In an August debate, Sullivan said he was not in favor of the provision in the law that extended coverage to adult children up to age 26, one popular part of the law. In an interview with Alaska Dispatch News this week, he said he declined to directly answer the question. He should explain his decision.
Another popular part of the law is the requirement of coverage of pre-existing conditions.
In the August debate, Sullivan talked about transparency and freedom in health care.
"My focus with regard to repeal and replace would be on the principle of freedom. Freedom meaning that the federal government should not be the decision maker; the families and the doctor should be," Sullivan said during an August debate.
The only people who quibble with that are those who hate freedom. Raise your hand if you hate freedom.
The tough part comes when you try to pay for coverage of pre-existing conditions with freedom-based health care.
Sullivan's campaign put his solution in a tweet last month on "Day four of freedom-based, private sector health care solutions." His prescription is to "establish high-risk pools to give people with pre-existing conditions access to the same quality care as everyone else."
Sounds good. Let's see the details on how it will be paid for and what the premiums will be. It will take more than a tweet.
The state had a high-risk pool for years, with about 500 people enrolled, but a lot of others couldn't afford the high premiums. Half of the people who signed up had deductibles of $10,000 or $15,000.
Under the new federal health care law, people have moved out of the high-risk pool and into the individual market. The insurance companies say it hasn't worked as well in practice as in theory.
The structure of the system in Alaska is under pressure, in part because health care is more expensive here than in other states and because people with pre-existing conditions, some of them very sick, now have regular insurance. And enormous insurance claims.
The insurance companies say the pool of buyers is not large enough to spread the costs around. There were 33 people who ran up $7 million in claims in six months.
The response so far from the Parnell administration and from candidate Sullivan has been to complain that insurance rates are going up because of Obamacare and to attack Begich for voting for the law, without offering specifics on how to fix this problem or any other.
That's the easy way out.
In a state legislative hearing this week, a Juneau emergency room physician said that people seem to forget that health care in America was on an unsustainable path when the law was enacted in 2010. He said we should identify the problems and deal with them.
That's the healthy way to look at this issue.
Dermot Cole is a reporter and columnist for Alaska Dispatch News.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.