GOP operatives are running a secret campaign to kill health care reform, and it's based on Karl Rove's old playbook "The insurance industry is up to the same dirty tricks, using the same devious PR practices it has used for many years, to kill reform," says Wendell Potter, who stepped down last year as chief of corporate communications for health insurance giant CIGNA. "I'm certain that people showing up at these town halls feel that they're there on their own — but they don't realize they're being incited, ultimately, by the insurance industry and the other special interests."
Behind the scenes, top Republicans — including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Minority Leader John Boehner and the chairman of the GOP's Senate steering committee, Jim DeMint — worked hand-in-glove with the organizers of the town brawls. Their goal was not only to block health care reform but to bankrupt President Obama's political capital before he could move on to other key items on his agenda, including curbing climate change and expanding labor rights. As DeMint told an August teleconference of nearly 20,000 town-hall activists, "If we can stop him on this, the administration won't be able to go on to cap and trade, card check and the other things they want to do." Read it all at Rolling Stone
House Republican Leader John Boehner launched an unusually harsh broadside at an estranged GOP ally Monday, ripping the drug industry for siding with President Obama's health care reform proposal.
PhRMA has agreed to trim $80 billion in costs over ten years and support the president in exchange for assurances the White House is not making public.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have been grumbling about the defection of the powerful lobby, which is running vague ads in support of reform. The letter is by leaps the most public stab at the group, which is run by a former top Republican congressman, Billy Tauzin. Read it all along with a copy of Boehner's letter here.
After Rep. Roy Blunt, leader of the supposed House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, suggested Thursday that Republicans won't offer a health care plan of their own, Minority Leader John Boehner insisted one was still in the works.
Of course, the Republican plan as in 1993 is to stop health care reform at all costs to prevent an enduring Democratic majority. Bill Kristol, who told Republicans 16 years ago that there was "no crisis" justifying health care reform then, now simply calls on his party to "kill it." With spinmeisters Frank Luntz and Alex Castellanos supplying the talking points that a supposed "government takeover of health care" is "too much, too fast, too soon," obstructionists like Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe boasted his party would "stall" President Obama's health care initiative to ensure a "huge gain" in the 2010 election. In a nutshell, the GOP is proposing to extend the status quo for a nation gripped by a collapsing health care system.
Here, then, is the Republican 10-Point Plan for Health Care:
1. 50 Million Uninsured in America
2. Another 25 Million Underinsured
3. Employer-Based Coverage Plummets Below 60%
4. Employer Health Costs to Jump by 9% in 2010
5. One in Five Americans Forced to Postpone Care
6. 62% of U.S. Bankruptcies Involve Medical Bills
7. Current Health Care Costs Already Fueling Job Losses
8. 94% of Health Insurance Markets in U.S Now "Highly Concentrated"
9. Dramatic Decline in Emergency Room Capacity
10. Perpetuating Red State Health Care Failure For the details and data behind each, continue reading at Crooks and Liars
by Jason Rosenbaum - The Seminal
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:
|
