Republican Senate Candidate Admits GOP Has No Position On Health Care
Whoops. Rob Portman, a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, has now admitted in an interview that the GOP doesn’t have a position on health care. Worse, he says he came to that conclusion after multiple discussions with GOP Congressional leaders about the issue.
Check out this nugget buried in a National Journal article (subscription only) about Portman:
Republicans have also taken some heat nationally for not focusing on health care in their campaigns in recent years, but Portman already has been speaking on the issue frequently.
“We have to have an alternative. … I will tell you, I don’t think there is a Republican alternative at this point,” he said. He said he reached that conclusion after talking to Senate leaders and lawmakers about the GOP’s position. “There isn’t one,” he said. “There’s a task force, and I applaud them for that.”
Congressional Republicans have enlisted all manner of political consultant, such as Frank Luntz, to tell them how to attack the health care ideas being floated by Dems. Portman’s candor isn’t exactly going to bolster their claim that they have any constructive alternatives in mind.
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But wait, didn’t Paul Ryan say they DO have an alternative? Just like they had an alternative stimulus bill and just like they had an alternative budget? You know the drill, double the effect for half the cost. What happened to that “alternative” plan?
This was no surprise, conservatives believe the answer to all problems is less government, trickle down economics, and free markets. Except when it comes to national security. This describes the current health care system. So as far as they are concerned there is nothing to fix except medicare. Their answer there is to ration care to the elderly and disabled (less government policy). It is impossible with these core set of values to solve any meaningful problems such as health care, energy or the economy. That is why the electorate is voting for progressive ideas. As soon as the Democrat’s fix the mess the Republican’s made America will return to the ideas of self interest just as they did in 2000. The cycle will repeat. Conservative idea’s have proved to be ineffective to governance yet they will pander to the lowest in human nature to return to power. Hopefully, us progressives during these difficult times will assist the country in moving forward to an America that is prosperous for all of the people while maintaining fiscal discipline.
No. Really?
LOL
They do have an alternative. It’s called opposing anything that Obama wants. Don’t know where y’all have been but opposition is the same thing as a real plan. Were you expecting a numberless budget or something? Nice try, but this GOP is firing on all 7 cylinders baby!!
“Nice try, but this GOP is firing on all 7 cylinders baby!!”
Now I’m truly LOL!
It is so amazing to me how supporters of the Rethuglican small government, trickle down ideas, do not see how a government backed health care system would be advantageous. Do they not understand how much tax revenue is spent on the back-end with people utilizing emergency care, when preventive care would be so much more efficacious? Plus by taking the stance they do, they just allow the movers and shakers in the “Medical Industry” to just get richer at are expense.
They just will not read beyond the bumper sticker solutions.
Here’s the plan:
1. Fight health care reform.
2. ???
3. Profit!
This is a prime example of those who chose to live in the world of “Illusion”….and for 40+ yrs the GOP has done nothing but be divise, negative, and hurtful…..FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY….America has waken up…..WE WILL NOT GO BACK….NOT NOW…NOT EVER….U KNOW THE SAYIN…..ONCE U GO BLK….U DON’T GO BACK!!..
Wht wud Steele say….” bling, bling…we are in the heeze!!”Thnkgd we have Obama!!
I work full time for a small private company, they don’t offer health insurance. It’s not that I want something for free. I will pay for insurance, but when I get quotes for insurance and it costs me one full paycheck I can’t purchase it. If I get “affordable” insurance, I just get to pay for the privilege to say I have it….I still have to pay the first $5,000 for it to kick in and a monthly payment as well. It irritates me that the Republicans think of me as a person who wants to use the system, wants something for nothing, or who doesn’t understand hard work. I don’t believe that the 46 million of us who are uninsured are all lazy folks looking for a free ride.
This has been apparent for a long time. It was why McCain could never explain his plan which had more holes than swiss cheese. Ryan like McCain talks about a tax credit of around $5000 for a family of four when the cost of healthcare for a family of four who are healthy is around $13,500. When it comes to “pre-existing conditions” or the poor it all gets very vague. The Dem message to the Republicans should be put up or shut up.
Health care is not a right. I didn’t have it when I was younger because I chose not to have it. I was relatively healthy and chose to spend money on other things I felt were more important. Examples like this are included when the number of people without health care are tallied so don’t buy into the stats.
It has also been shown that government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid have contributed to the rising costs of health care. Government run health care in other countries has had horrible results and many citizens of these countries are highly critical of government run health care but noone listens. It will lead to rationing, people will have to wait longer for needed treatment, some people will be denied treatment, and the costs will skyrocket even further because the once it is available, the demand will increase and there is only a set number of doctors now. With the increase of demand, prices will jump, if price controls are implemented, then shortages will occur. A lot of people won’t be concerned with the costs because government is picking up the tab but the taxpayer will likely spend more for healthcare through taxes than they did for insurance.
Since when has a government run program ever been an efficient means of production? The same people who bring you the post office, the department of motor vehicles and public education will now be running health care, great. Way to think this through.
I’m not a member of the GOP but I applaud any politician who realizes they can’t solve my problems or your problems. They make them worse.
Re some earlier discussions here on healthcare in Canada and reported cases of Canadians coming to the US for treatments (I’m Canadian), Krugman has a very good post today with links to research…
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/sun-sand-and-surgery/
.
As you’ll see, my earlier statements that such cases are very few (I know personally of none and lived in Canada 55 years) are supported by this research whereas the claims by rightwing think tanks etc to the contrary are false. And in fact, the number of Americans going to Mexico for medical treatments are thousands of times greater.
In addition to my previous post, what do you think the best doctors will do in a government run system? Right now, the US imports the best medical talent in the world. Why? I think the answer is obvious. When the workload increases and the compensation decreases because of government involvenment, these doctors will stop coming to the US and the best doctors will work for the highest bidder, even if that means leaving the country. This decrease in the amount of imported doctors and increase in the amount of exported doctors will make rationing and higher prices even more likely.
Well, not exactly. The health care system we have now *is* the Republican alternative. Nothing wrong with the status quo, right?
Call me a party pooper, but I’m of the mind that context is everything; much as I generally agree with Greg, this does not provide that. At some point, I’m hoping that the entirety is available to us, not only by subscription.
Attacking Republicans for not having a plan for something many people believe requires no government involvement is nothing more than cheap political theater, an attempt to make a politician look like an uncaring mean person. This is a fallacious argument method, it tries to make the reader come to the conclusion that if someone doesn’t have a plan then that person is guilty. The question of whether there should or should not be a plan is completely bypassed, most likely intentionally to advance a personal agenda. There hasn’t been a plan before and rightfully so. F.A. Hayek tells you all you need to know about the dangers of planning in “The Road to Serfdom”.
One last thing then I’m done, I promise. This is why I don’t belong to the GOP, the GOP senators and representatives should be explaining why government involvement in health care is a bad idea instead of trying to come up with a more palatable plan just for the sake of having a plan. They fall right into the Democrat’s trap. Weaklings, they don’t deserve to be in power because they lost their way a long time ago.
The GOP had a plan it was get Bush elected, lower taxes, go to war with Iraq and Bankrupt the Federal Government so it could not afford to do one damn thing…end of United States of America as we grew up in.
The idea that your access to healthcare depends on other’s being denied healthcare is a myth: We deliver care to every person in the US, even if they can’t pay for it. Unfortunately, by making preventive and sub-acute health care difficult to obtain we endanger everyone. For example, we have created a vast pool of drug-resistant TB in the indigent population. It doesn’t matter if YOU have health insurance if you pick up one of these TB strains from a street person: It may be untreatable, and you may die.
The Free Market Model of health care has very little to do with the reasons people become doctors, or the reasons foreign doctors come here. If they were driven by money, they would get business degrees.
If you want to understand the rising cost of health care, just look at the biggest changes over the last four decades: Most hospitals used to be community-supported non-profits, owned and operated for the benefit of the local population. Now most are owned by profit-hungry corporations. Most doctors used to own their own practice. Now most work for corporations with stock holders, dividend payments, etc. Most health insurance companies were mutuals (customer-owned) and covered their administrative costs by investing the float. Now most are for-profit corporations that have lost on their investments and try to make up the loss by cherry-picking new customers, denying legitimate claims, and gleefully terminating anyone sick for some tiny technical excuse like forgetting to list the reason for a doctor visit 20 years before filling in the application.
Anybody who really thinks the existing for-profit private system works better than Medicare is badly deluded. Please, just look up the average overhead expenses and the truth will set you free!
The GOP is all in favor of everything being private as if government can’t do anything right and the answer to all problems or needs is always to be found in private enterprise. Well, if the private sector is so great how come the public sector is now having to bail out so many of those private, for-profit enterprises — think GM, Chrysler, AIG, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, etc., etc. Our government is the sum and representative of all of us and can be made to work in our best interest and for the common good, such as providing universal health care. This instead of the private model which appears to seek only to enrich those already at the top of the economic pyramid who have vested interests in keeping the current unsatisfactory health care system limping along just as it is. Other countries have it far better than we do because they empower their governments to provide universal health care. Citizens in those advanced countries admire and enjoy their system for health care. Reports to the contrary are mostly scare tactics employed to keep Americans afraid of instituting a single payer system. We need to look beyond the fear mongering of those who are lobbying our government to keep the status quo.
Ryan–
Rob Portman’s been a US Congressman and served in the Bush administration in a major position. If the Republican position is that there’s no problem with the situation, and that fixing health care is a bad idea, why didn’t he just say so? Either Portman at least recognizes there’s a problem–and the way he answered the question is a big tip-off that he does–or he doesn’t think there’s a problem but doesn’t have the guts to say so, because he knows how badly the public would react.
Here’s a fact for you to mull on: according to the reliable, non-partisan Kaiser Foundation, the number of Americans who die every year directly due to a lack of health insurance: 18,000. Yes, you read that correctly: 18,000. More than my entire hometown of Waterville, Maine. Or, to put in language you might better understand, SIX September 11ths. Every single year. You claim that because YOU, as a very healthy person in his 20s, didn’t need health care, none of the FORTY-SEVEN MILLION people who don’t have health care could want it, is downright bizarre.
As for so-called government inefficiency–I’ve used post-offices in three different states over the past six years far more than the average person (my job involves mailing large manuscripts on a regular basis); I find the employees at all locations to be prompt, courteous, speedy, and helpful. I realize this doesn’t conform to your stereotype. What a pity.
And, finally, it might do you some good to investigate what kind of health care our congresspeople and Senators have; something makes me strongly suspect it’s government-funded and government-run. Just a hunch.
The government already steals a solid 17% of my paycheck for a failing pyramid scheme known as Social Security. Let’s not give these crooks any more, hmm?
Greg,
I guarantee you that a government run health care system will be responsible for many more deaths than 18,000 due to rationing and delayed treatments. Donate to charity like I do if you want to help the uninsured, just don’t force me to pay taxes on what will be an inefficient and subpar system. And by the way, as an Army veteran, I’m very aware of the government funded VA hospital facilities and their quality. I wouldn’t even wish you the misfortune of having an extended stay there as opposed to the wonderful hospitals that a market system based on free choice has created. You speak like I or like-minded US citizens don’t care about the uninsured but nothing could be further from the truth. I just see the realities of what a government run system has brought to other countries.
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Cheers,
The GOP WEIGHS in on the Lean Side of Healthcare Reform.
With obesity being the major health issue of our day effecting the high cost of healthcare, and with numbers getting more obese each year (visit cdc.org and surgeongeneral.gov), we should get control of ourselves—not pointing fingers at the government.
A few slogans:
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can LOOSE for your country!”
“Only You Can Prevent Obesity.”
“Health Begins at Home.”
Good habits practiced over time will yield great results!
Optimistic,