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There is no GOP health care plan |
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Politico points out the obvious:
Republicans look across the health reform battlefield and see the Democrats organized, energized and flush with cash — with several groups lined up to promote the president’s plan, and a message honed by years of preparation.
Then they look into their own camp — and get nervous.
There’s no Republican plan yet. No Republicans leading the charge who have coalesced the party behind them. Their message is still vague and unformed. Their natural allies among insurers, drug makers and doctors remain at the negotiating table with the Democrats.
So Republicans now worry the party has waited so long to figure out where it stands that it will make it harder to block what President Barack Obama is trying to do.
This is just another reason we’re going to win health care for all this year. But there’s more to the story.
Republicans did start a “health care task force” led by minority leader John Boehner back in February. So far, all we’ve seen from them are a few quotes in the paper and some misleading press releases from Boehner. Certainly, there’s been no serious policy proposals. As Politico points out, a lot of Republican “ideas” on health care died with John McCain’s candidacy.
Boehner, of course, was the guy leading the charge on the GOP alternative to the budget, if by alternative you mean a budget without any details or numbers. I wonder if Boehner’s health care plan will look similar. Judging by the health care section in the alternative “budget” (a budget document without numbers deserves those quotation marks), America may be able to look forward to a similar substance-less plan:
The Republican proposal, as you might expect, doesn’t actually have a health care plan. But it does have this: “Republicans will be on the side of quality versus mediocrity, affordability versus unsustainable debt, and freedom of care versus bureaucrats in control. And we will be on the side of patients, doctors, and the American people.” They are also in favor of good things rather than bad things, moving forward rather than going backwards, the hobbits rather than the orcs, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. That said, the GOP does understand that some voters might be looking for specificity on their health plan. So they included this graphic:
It’s like someone showed them a flowchart. Once. And only for a few seconds. And refused to explain it. My editor Ann Friedman just walked into the room. “It looks like they’re building a budget molecule,” she said.
A budget molecule. Maybe that’s what they were doing.
I know I’m looking forward to the Republican health care molecule myself.
(Also posted at the NOW! blog)
