GOP National Council Stumped When Asked To Offer Health Care Solutions

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/04/gop-national-council-stumped-when-asked-to-offer-health-care-solutions/

GOP National Council Stumped When Asked To Offer Health Care Solutions


On Saturday, Republican Party leaders Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Jeb Bush, and Mitt Romney participated in a pizza parlor town hall in Arlington, VA to launch the National Council for a New America. The Council, an effort to rebrand and revive the GOP, was established by Cantor to “duel with the Obama administration in policy areas” where Republicans have a “track record.”

After almost 40 minutes of speeches, including several reminders that Republicans should not be “nostalgic about the past,” the speakers opened up to questions from the audience. Ed McKee, the owner of the pizza parlor, asked what Republicans would do to reform health care, citing his own business’ struggle to deal with “health insurance rates,” which recently “went up 34%.”

Watch it at link~

Responding to McKee’s question concerning the dramatic health care cost hike, Cantor said “that should be a sure sign we ought to be promoting anything that can try to bring health care costs down.” But rather than offering any ideas or policy plans for addressing health care costs, Cantor launched into a set of attacks on the health systems in the UK and Canada, saying any reform should not reflect a “government takeover.” The National Council’s policy paper on health care is similarly vague and lacks a single policy plan.

Cantor is not offering any of the promised “new policy ideas.” Instead, he is rehashing tired straw man arguments against the single-payer systems of Canada and the UK. The Obama administration has consistently opposed a single-payer program. However, the administration has signaled it will support a public option, a program to give Americans the choice of either retaining their private insurance plan or the ability to enter a government plan. A study from the Commonwealth Fund estimates that a public plan option would cost 20-30% less than premiums from traditional private insurers.

[Hepburn]

1. What a shock....

...NOT. :hi:

[flakey_foont]

5. yes, it truly boggles the mind, doesn't it?

how perplexing!

[LeftinOH]

2. Their solution: Cry "communism" about whatever the Dems are doing...n/t

[damntexdem]

3. They got nothin'.

And that's just what Americans will get from the Republics, if that much.

[tridim]

4. Why would they? They love health care just the way it is.

Because it makes the rich richer.

[DCKit]

9. Why wouldn't they? The highest per capita cost in the world and 40% overhead.

The insurance, drug and health care whorporations can afford to be the People's Congress' biggest donors.

The formula works for the MIC, the money launderers, polluters, and everyone else who wants to buy the right to act against the best interests of the people while maximizing profits. How could it be wrong when it feels so right?

[Supersedeas]

6. more empty promises from the Reskanks outraged with the lack of bipartisanship

[gratuitous]

7. "We ought to be promoting anything that can try . . ."

Except, of course, anything that might work.

Well, that's what happens when you open the floor to a professional pizza parlor owner; the "gotcha" questions roll out like pepperoni, and the next thing you know, the media filter has gotten in the way. Maybe the next stop on the Republican Listening Tour should be at a school for the deaf, so they aren't interrupted by a bunch of inconvenient questions?

[Supersedeas]

10. they have nothing in the form of leadership to offer except same tired drum of cutting taxes

[rhett o rick]

8. k & r