Talk about guiding the sheep to the slaughter...the Republicans had no idea how badly they were going to get their rhetoric sliced and diced. I've been listening / watching about half of the entire meeting, streaming online, and every time Republicans have come up with rhetorical arguments about ways to change the Democrats' plans, the Democrats have absolutely torn them apart.
McCain tried to bring up malpractice lawsuits, but he was shot down by the President and Dick Durbin, who pointed out that the CBO showed that their proposal would save less than one-half of one percent in spending, a year, and Henry Waxman pointed out that lawsuit limits hadn't saved California from the current Anthem Blue Cross 39% proposed increase this year.
The Republicans tried to attack the growth of public medical care (Medicaid and Medicare), only to be shot down when asked why they didn't have that same priority in mind when they passed their Medicare drug benefit, to the tune of $8 trillion, back in 2003.
They tried to show how American health care is the best in the world by explaining how Canadian politicians would choose to come down to the US for treatment, only to have it pointed out that the average American doesn't earn the money that politicians and sheiks make, that allow them to choose to go to the Mayo clinic.
In pushing the Republican plan, the Democrats would note that there was a 27 million people coverage gap between the two plans, and that costs wouldn't be changed under the Republican plan.
It's clear when you listen to the two sides talk, the Democrats would like to outlaw pre-existing conditions from health care exclusions, while the Republicans would rather let these high risk, high cost individuals to pool together to get lower prices. The Democrats would spread risk across the board (which was supposed to be the point of health care insurance) while the Republicans would generally preserve the existing system, allowing the desegregation of health care by risk.
Watching Ron Wyden speak, you could see how even Republicans were paying attention to when he spoke. Even though he's a strong liberal, he's got a bi-partisan streak within him, and you can see that he's taking his own party to task, specifically on interstate shopping for plans (allows you to shop across the state border for health care plans).
I thought that the Republicans might win the war on words since they had done so well in the media, but the Republicans look absolutely uncomfortable when confronted with their rhetoric. Face to face, every time they tried to push their own agenda, they were shot down by numbers. They tried to bring their stories from their constituents to push their agenda, only to have to listen to Democrats bring their own constituents' stories.
Crazy that the Republicans tried to complain about not having these hearings before, only to see their getting slaughtered in it. They had the biggest opportunity to push Democrat Ron Wyden's bipartisan Healthy Americans Act, and didn't take it up; that was their only chance to seize the platform of change, and they blew it. Why so inept?
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