Republicans Respond to Obama’s Invite
Tags: Obamacare.
Via NRO’s The Corner:
We welcome President Obama’s announcement of forthcoming bipartisan health care talks. In fact, you may remember that last May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground on health care, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats. Since then, the President has given dozens of speeches on health care reform, operating under the premise that the more the American people learn about his plan, the more they will come to like it. Just the opposite has occurred…
…scrapping the House and Senate health care bills would help end the uncertainty they are creating for workers and businesses and thus strengthen our shared commitment to focusing on creating jobs. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people? Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the President is “absolutely not” resetting the legislative process for health care.
If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation? As the President has noted recently, Democrats continue to hold large majorities in the House and Senate, which means they can attempt to pass a health care bill at any time through the reconciliation process.
Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people.If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand? Our ability to move forward in a bipartisan way through this discussion rests on openness and transparency. Will the President include in this discussion congressional Democrats who have opposed the House and Senate health care bills? This bipartisan discussion should reflect the bipartisan opposition to both the House bill and the kickbacks and sweetheart deals in the Senate bill. Will the President be inviting officials and lawmakers from the states to participate in this discussion?…
…We look forward to receiving your answers and continuing to discuss ways we can move forward in a bipartisan manner to address the challenges facing the American people.
That certainly isn’t pulling any punches. Obama hopes to either co-opt a few Republicans to vote for a stripped down version of ObamaCare, or set the GOP as the “do nothing” party preventing work from getting done. The House GOP, at least, has seen right through this gambit and answered right back – if Obama and the Democrats are in any way sincere and honest, then we can move forward with the required assurances.
Given that Democrats would have to reach for a dictionary to figure out what “sincere” and “honest” mean, there’s not much hope of progress here. Even with 41 Senate GOP votes, Democrats still entirely control this – they can do as they please. If they want us along, they’ll have to divvy up the pie and ensure there are genuine free market and pro-life elements to whatever health care reform emerges. They don’t have to do this – they can muscle it through on their own – but if they want to cross the aisle, then there are requirements.
“Bi-partisan” no longer means “Republicans go along with the Democrats” – it means 50/50 give and take. And Democrats from Obama on down can take it or leave it.
Mark Noonan is co-author (with Matt Margolis) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Nevada News and Views. Follow Mark on Twitter.
14 Responses to “Republicans Respond to Obama’s Invite”
Caucus of Corruption
So… scrap health care altogether, reaffirm the commitment to no earmarks, like, say, Republican Senator Shelby refusing to allow confirmations until a FOREIGN COMPANY in his state is awarded a lucrative contract… oh, sorry, I forgot – earmarks are overlooked if they’re proposed by Republicans, even if they aren’t even for American companies.
Do all this, and the Republicans might – MIGHT – be prepared to negotiate.
History has shown that when Obama gives ground, when Obama allows negotiations, Republicans slip nice little earmarks for their own states in and then vote against the main bills anyway. Yes, the televised debate is a good idea, if only to show up the Republicans yet again in front of the country. But don’t kid yourselves: “scrap all your plans and we might talk about bipartisanship” is NOT bipartisanship.
AF,
Oh, you need not scrap anything – you need not pay us any mind, at all. Go ahead – pass whatever you want. The American people spoke very loud and clear in November of 2008 and entirely rejected us Republicans. We’re in the distinct political minority with, at best, the means of merely slowing things down – we can’t stop anything.
So, why is it stopped? Not because of our political power, but because when the American people rejected us, they didn’t necessarily embrace the leftist agenda being pressed by the Democrat leadership – Democrats are fearful of pressing forward because of the pending elections.
So, what to do? Well, the thing to do is try to get at least some GOP support – but we’ve decided that if our support is going to be given, then we want actual, conservative, GOP policies to be embedded in the bill…such things which are, of course, opposed by the leftist base of the Democrat party. But, once again, you need not bid for our support – you don’t need us…except for the fact that if you press forward then you might lose more than 100 House seats in November.
Sucks to be a liberal in 2010 – your own darn fault; if you hadn’t relentlessly lied about us and about your own programs in 2008, you wouldn’t have won and you wouldn’t be stuck between this rock and that hard place.
Next time, try telling the truth.
It remains to be seen what losses or gains there are. The thing is, although people may be angry about the lack of progress on health care reform, it’s mainly for two reasons: firstly the watered down bill doesn’t go far enough, and secondly it’s taking too long to pass.
With the Republicans at the helm, there wouldn’t BE health care reform. Conservatism holds that the best people to take care of business are corporations, not the government. The result of corporations taking care of business is another 38% rise in healthcare premiums – that’s assuming you can get healthcare in the firstplace.
People may be justifiably angry with Obama for not getting the job done, but at least he wants to try. The Republicans don’t.
Faux – “It remains to be seen what losses or gains there are. The thing is, although people may be angry about the lack of progress on health care reform, it’s mainly for two reasons: firstly the watered down bill doesn’t go far enough, and secondly it’s taking too long to pass.
With the Republicans at the helm, there wouldn’t BE health care reform. Conservatism holds that the best people to take care of business are corporations, not the government.”
Watered down? – by Democrats. Republicans are in no position to politically influence the debate.
“it’s taking too long to pass.” – Again, by Democrats. As we have seen with the special deal with the unions, the Louisiana Purchase and other back room deals to BUY support shows that the bill is not as popular with the constituancy as portrayed.
Also, Democrats have REFUSED any amendments or alternatives offered by the GOP, so this is strictly their baby.
“Conservatism holds that the best people to take care of business are corporations, not the government.”
Uh, yeah. We have seen so many federal programs cost more and waste more to provide services and benefits than the private sector would. If government would get out of the way, a health plan can be offered that is affordable and provide sutible covernage for individuals. For example, the government does not allow healthcare plans to cross state lines. Maryland residents cannot buy a plan offered in any state other than those in Maryland. Also, government requires policies to have minimum benefits. For example, my health care policy is required (by law) to offer coverage for hair transplants. I don’t want it or need it, but I am forced to pay for it. That is just one example of mandates I know there are others. Therefore, if government gets out of the way, the private sector will meet the needs of the populace. Believing otherwise is just something inbred into non-conservatives or they cannot intellectually grasp that idea.
Which leads to “With the Republicans at the helm, there wouldn’t BE health care reform.” BS! Again, the demands of the constituency will force that option – the same happened with prescription drug benefits.
But again, prescription drugs are expensive not because of “greed” but because of the mandates by government. And those mandates have nothing to do with “safety”. They have everything to do with government interferring or limiting the time the company can hold the license to the product before it becomes generic. The company has a very short time to recover their expenses to get the drug approved (again – caused by the government) before the rights to the drug enters the public domain and anyone can produce it without having to fork out the cash to get it approved.
This isn’t rocket science – government is a cost center, not a profit center. The government does not make things more efficient. It can only hinder. That is something you leftists need to realize.
AF – hold the televised hearing anyway. the gop cannot claim they didn’t get fair notice.
I hope he will. I hope he’ll have a debate and they won’t turn up because their demands haven’t been met. But of course, then they’d try and twist it round to “well, you didn’t demonstrate you’re willing to negotiate by meeting our demands.”
The country won’t be fooled.
Like what? In the third presidential debate, John McCain outlined the main points of his healthcare reform plan:
•Put healthcare records online (3021)
•More community health centers and walk-in clinics
•Physical fitness programs, nutrition programs in schools
•Employers need to reward employees who join health clubs and practice wellness and fitness
•Give every American family a $5,000 tax credit
•Allow people to buy health insurance across state lines
I was not able to find any mention of walk-in clinics in the Senate bill, and didn’t even try to see if it included the incentive for employees to join health clubs due to the difficulty involved in searching. Additionally, the Senate bill’s tax credit system is considerably more complex than just $5,000 per family. Other than this, though, all of these things are included. And for the record, there is no fine for small businesses that fail to cover their employees, nor is there either a single=payer system or a public option. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think of any massive new federal bureaucracies in the Senate bill; all of the massive parts (e.g. the tax credits and Medicaid) would be handled by existing bureaucracies, and the exchanges would be state-level entities. There may be some smaller bureaucracies in there that have escaped my notice, though.
In addition to McCain’s plan, John Boehner also proposed one. Here are its key points:
•Medical malpractice reform
•”Expand[ing] the use of tax-sheltered medical savings accounts”
•Allow people to buy health insurance across state lines
•Form high-risk insurance pools
•Insurance exchanges for small businesses (I think — I haven’t seen them called that, but that seems to be what the article describes)
The last three are included, at least in some form, in the Senate bill. Obama has said that he is willing to look into medical malpractice reform, and that will probably be what the talks end up focusing on. I don’t think the second one is in the bill, though I haven’t checked because it’s half past midnight.
So what other policies do you want the bill to include?
“…last May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground on health care, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats.”
So when Obamateur stated “…extended a hand and got a fist in return..”, he was talking of himself.
No surprises there. The “Party of NO” talking point made for good politics, since it was just another lie. Useful idiot lemmings like Faux, joe, cam, oo and the rest regurgitate them to the point where they actually believe anything they are told in spite of the facts.
Case in point, look at the last posts by Faux.
Sergei,
I’m not aware of any Democrat bill that provides for competition across state lines. Do you have a reference or a link to that portion of either the House or Senate bill?
It’s §1333 of the Senate bill (which is the only one that matters). Additionally, §1311(f)(1) allows for the creation not just of interstate plans, but of interstate exchanges.
Watch out for AFoxcow, Mark–she once said that the 6 million unemployed, at the time, would die before they found work if we didn’t pass Earbamacare…
Obama’s invitation is nothing more than a head-fake. This man is a hard-core ideologue, dedicated to the ‘transformation’ of this nation into something that fits his ideology. He is a political jihadist, willing to commit political suicide if it will allow him to go down in radial socialist history as a martyr to the cause and the one who accomplished what no one had been able to accomplish before. Sure he’ll make the gesture, to try to appease those who have noticed that so far he has been adamant and arrogant and inflexible. But anyone who thinks he is willing to actually DO anything significant in the way of compromise has not been paying attention to the man, to his agenda, or to his determination.
The Dems have been very up-front in admitting that all they want is a bill to be be passed, and that they will go back into that bill after it is passed and make it what they want it to be.
Many years ago, I met an old woman who told me she had sold the first Encyclopedia Britannica at a World’s Fair. She said the books had not been written yet, so she had a shelf of beautiful books with leather bindings and blank pages, and she told people what was going to be in them, after they bought them.
Every time I hear the Dems talk about this bill, I think of this woman and her shelf of nothing, and her promise that if people would only buy the premise they would fill up those pages with wonderful stuff.
Encyclopedia Britannica honored its promise, and I fear that the Dems will honor theirs, too—but what they want to enter between the covers of the bill of goods they are trying to sell us is what bothers me.
Ama
it is a smoke screen to make the GOP say no and the donks can feign outrage.
SCRAP this horrible monstrosity and begin over and craft a real bi partisan piece of legislature, then we can have a dialog on it.
Wow, she must have been pretty old since the Encyclopedia Britannica was first published in the 18th century.