Yes, John Boehner announced today that Republicans intend to “crash the party” that Obama’s putting on this Thursday.They've got nothing, basically. Actually, they've got nothing literally too, the GOP freely admits it doesn't have anything to add at the summit. The Village is trying to do everything to muck up the summit by complaining about seat assignments and by running a number of op-eds today proclaiming President Uppity McBlackMan is about to get what's coming to him for daring to do this when clearly health care reform was nice and dead after President Scott Brown was elected in January.
OK cool. But, um. Soooo. Didn’t President Obama very explicitly invite the Repubs to the Health Care Summit? So, I mean, how do you crash a party you’re invited to? Boehner goes on to say that they haven’t actually accepted any invitation yet.
Boehner explained that leaders are waiting for a response from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to a letter they sent earlier this month that asked a series of questions on the bipartisan summit.“It’s our intent to be there on Thursday. We’re waiting on a response and we’re hopeful that we’ll receive one soon,” Boehner explained.So is not RSVP’ing, then showing up anyway, the new “party crashing”? But there’s no point in trying to decipher what he meant by any of this. It’s just more Republican silliness, joshing and shoving each other and shifting from one foot to the next because, truthfully, they don’t know how to handle this whole summit idea.
Dan Pfeiffer, writing on the White House website, couldn’t resist thumbing his nose a little over the failure of the Repubs to post their comprehensive solutions to the health care crisis. To which they responded “We did! We posted this!” Like, about, last October or something. And it’s the House Republicans *plan*, Senate Repubs not involved. But anyway it’s not as LONG as the stupid Dem/Pelosi Wicked Takeover plan.
Um, what’s that? You say “long” isn’t the issue any more? Oh yeah, that’s right. Now the Democrats plan is too short. Freaking bunch of Goldilocks, I swear.
But the GOP does have a plan for life after this summit...and life after health care reform is passed: to make sure the national legislation is tied up in courts for all eternity while Republican-led states simply enact the GOP ideas in each state, creating a massive mess. Of course, that plan starts with the Wignuttiest state in the nation, Utah.
(More after the jump...)
Gov. Bob Herbert telling Cavuto here that the key is to make employers in each state provide "defined contributions", not "defined benefits", meaning that you get to lose your current plan and have to go shopping for what coverage you can buy with your employer's contribution. (Skip to the 2:00 mark in the video.)
And since there'll be no national pool, that "competition" will be strictly limited to catastrophic coverage only...because that's all you'll be able to afford. The Republicans want to turn each state into a pool of individual plans with the least benefit to cost ratio, giving insurance companies maximum profit. This type of competition works in one respect: you'll be competing to see how little health care you can use because under this plan, you're the one shouldering the care part of the burden, not your insurance company or employer.
Ideally, Republicans would want 50 state plans like this. No more cheaper pool coverage for working Americans, nope. You're on your own. You have to pick out your own plan. Screw that up? Your fault.
Alan Grayson was on to this months ago. The GOP is deciding to win this battle at the state level instead. That's where it was always going to be fought.
Hope you live in a blue state.
It's amazing how a blog that claims to point out issues on both sides only points out issues in the GOP, not the Dems and certainly not the President. If the Dems were so sure about their Health care bill and so sure it's so great for the country then why don't they just push it through and reap the benefits. Why all these attempts for bipartisanship? They can claim "WE OWN THIS AND DID IT WITH NO REPUB SUPPORT!" and that would be the end of the Repub part, but they won't. They're going to try and try and try to get one person from the GOP so buy off on it so they can claim bi-partisan for multiple reasons. If it fails they can claim it was a "joint failure" and not have to face a backlash come election day and because Obama was supposed to be the one who would bring both sides together and be this great mediator and reach across the aisle. In reality he has failed miserably at that. He is not a leader, he's a good politician, he knows how to play the game, he's amazing at selling himself but that's it. After the show there's nothing substantive. There's another photo op or fake town hall meeting, or more flying around the world to get embarrassed somewhere else (Copenhagen, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts anyone?) So many people throw a fit about the Repubs not having a bill, that's their whole contingency point. Again I ask why would they? Isn't the definition of insanity performing the same task over and over again and expecting a different result? The House Repubs came up with a bill and it was a waste of their time and just got them a pdf on a .gov website, so why should the Senate Repubs take the time to get a bill together and send it over to the CBO and then have it collect dust on a shelf? Realistically the only thing they can do is hold out until November and hope that the numbers even up so there can be an actual discussion.
ReplyDeleteHi. Dear Block of Text:
ReplyDeleteThe GOP could have passed the health care reforms they wanted during the Bush administration.
They had eight years. They didn't do anything.
You had your chance.
Our turn.
Was health care a hot button issue then? Nope. To say something like that is quite frankly ignorant. How many years did the Repubs actually have control of both the House and Senate? Wasn't all 8 years Bush was in office but hey who cares about FACTS in this blog when you can ignore someone trying to have an actual debate. If health care was that big of an issue when the Repubs had control then we would have seen the Repubs recommendations of tort reform, portability, open markets, etc. passed and I know they would have done it because it would have been passing something to attempt to fix the system (bonus points with voters) and fucking the Dems (which is always good if you're a Repub) because those great trial lawyers give more money to Dems than Repubs. I have no faith in the Repub party, but I know they would jump at an opportunity to fuck over a Dem any day of the week. Howard Dean said it himself, the reason you won't see tort reform is the Dems don't want to fight everyone and the trial lawyers. It would have been a win win for the Repubs but it was a non-issue then.
ReplyDeleteAlso ignoring most of the post to make an inaccurate statement I guess shows how much you are willing to open your eyes and to be objective. I'm all about learning and making my own educated decision, but from what I've seen so far this blog takes opinions from other blogs and regurgitates opinion on top of them (Note: I've said all I've seen so far). if you shut the door and don't bother to read and think for yourself then you're a 3 year old covering your ears screaming "LALALALALALALA" because you don't want to hear what mommy has to say.
Lastly, I honestly don't know what this infatuation with Obama is. Sure he's the first black president and that speaks volumes for how far this country has come but I care more about the content of his character than the color of his skin. Would "don't judge a book by it's cover" apply here? Yay he's black, but wait he's not fulfilling campaign promises of hope and change. Instead its more of the same, which is all we will ever get from politicians. Those who believed and still believe that one person would change all of DC politics is a fool and should contact me directly as I'm selling the Golden gate bridge for uber cheap.