Obama lays cards on table. Where’s the GOP health bid? - USA Today editorial

[JohnWxy]

"Republicans, by tossing bombs while refusing to negotiate, effectively stand for the unacceptable status quo..."


http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/debate-on-medical-overhaul-our-view-obama-lays-cards-on-table-wheres-the-gop-health-bid-.html

In a nation where 46 million people lack health insurance, Obama's proposal would eventually cover more than 30 million. It would provide subsidies to help lower-income people buy policies. And it would eliminate an array of noxious insurance company practices, such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

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The larger picture, though, is that his plan would improve the lives of tens of millions of people without increasing the budget deficit. Republicans, by tossing bombs while refusing to negotiate, effectively stand for the unacceptable status quo, which is doubly troubling because individual Republicans have good ideas. Obama has adopted some, notably ones aimed at reducing Medicare and Medicaid fraud. He should take more, such as malpractice reform to reduce costly "defensive medicine." But responding to Obama's plan Monday, Republicans pretty much stuck with their drumbeat of demonization and obstruction, which has proved politically profitable.

Key Republicans have dropped their support for fixes they once supported, such as curbing Medicare spending and requiring everyone to have medical insurance as a matter of personal responsibility. And the only coherent alternative the GOP has collectively produced would barely cover an extra 3 million people out of 46 million uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office, at least 27 million fewer than the Democrats' bills (and reduce the deficit about half as much as either Democratic plan__JW).

At Thursday's televised summit, Obama will meet with Democratic and Republican leaders to talk about a bipartisan health fix. There's nothing we'd like to see more than the two parties joining hands to repair a system that works well for some Americans but harms or bankrupts too many others. But we have no delusions that starting over, as Republicans now insist, is anything but a politically motivated stall.

[timeforpeace]

1. Trouble is everyone knows they didn't run on HCR and never said they had a plan.

[ChicagoSuz219]

2. They have a plan. It's up. It's the same one from November.

Their main objective is to start over... never happen.

1)Tort Reform
2)Tax Cuts

Thanks for playing.

[demosincebirth]

3. We don't got one!

[Qutzupalotl]

4. K&R

because USA Today is usually skewed to the right.