Plan Of Attack

Surprise surprise, now that the GOP Plan is out of the bag ("break Obama"), the Republicans no longer have any plans for their own health care bill.

When House Republicans go on the attack against health care reform, one of the more common responses is to ask, "OK, but where's the Republican plan?" It's easy to attack; it's challenging to be productive.

Last night, The Hill reported that the GOP caucus has effectively given up on offering an alternative, and will instead stick to attacking.

Republicans who had promised last month to offer a healthcare reform alternative are now suggesting no such bill will be introduced.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, "Our bill is never going to get to the floor, so why confuse the focus? We clearly have principles; we could have language, but why start diverting attention from this really bad piece of work they've got to whatever we're offering right now?"

Blunt, who is running for Senate, is chairman of the House GOP Health Care Solutions Group. Cantor made similar comments to The Hill in June, saying Republicans would eventually offer legislative language on healthcare reform.

Democrats on Wednesday called out Republicans, reminding reporters in an e-mail that Blunt had guaranteed that the GOP would introduce a bill.

All things being equal, the GOP is probably making the right call by failing to offer an alternative. In fact, if I were a Republican strategist, I'd probably advise the party to do exactly this. Producing a GOP reform plan would not only give Democrats a target, it would offer people a chance to compare the two approaches to the issue, and in a side-by-side match-up, it's hardly a stretch to think the Dems would come out on top.

What's more, the Republican track record on alternative solutions is truly abysmal. The GOP budget alternative was a humiliating failure (you may recall, it lacked numbers). The GOP stimulus alternative -- tax cuts and a five-years spending freeze -- was so ridiculous, even some conservatives labeled it "insane." With this in mind, there's no need for the party to humiliate itself with a health care plan.

I think there's every need for the GOP to humiliate itself by having a health care plan, if only to prove the Democrats' point that this issue affects all of America. But sure, if I were a GOP strategist, I'd be doing the same. Why pretend the Republican Party cares at all about reforming health care in any other way other than creating a massive subsidy for insurance company corporate donors? After all, as Steve says here, if you look too closely at the GOP idea of health care reform, you see it's all about the insurance companies, not people.

Still, it shows just how bereft of actual ideas the GOP is.