Conservative health care reform plans

By Brendan Steinhauser on Oct 27, 2009

Liberals have claimed that conservatives favor "the status quo" when it comes to health care reform. President Obama uses this straw man argument all the time. But check out the Republican Study Committee's list of health reform proposals that have been put forward.

Just because the left ignores conservative ideas for health care reform, it doesn't mean that these ideas don't exist.

Arnold Hendricks
October 28, 2009 - 10:14am

I don't think any of this is about keeping the poor in their place. Look at what Obama did in Detroit. Why didn't the rest of American citizens get that cash as well? I am not considered even middle class and there is nobody coming to my rescue. People need to fight this bad economy and put their minds and their hands to good use and not take from the people who have worked hard and earned what they have. You reap what you sow. recensioni

MARAandBILL
October 27, 2009 - 6:12pm

Let me see now; there are 435 members of the House with a mix of 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans. The "conservative" RSC consists of 110 members. Sooo, the "conservative" Republicans in the House are the majority of the Republicans in the House by 62% to 38%. With 40 Republicans in the Senate, the total Republican population on Capitol Hill is 218. If one assumes that the only Republican "conservatives" on Capitol Hill are the ones on the RSC, the "conservatives" are still the majority of the Republicans on Capitol Hill by 2 seats.

Its starting to become much clearer to me why no meaningful Healthcare proposals are forthcoming from the Republican party; they have not just a RINO problem, but a CINO problem as well.

TheMan
October 27, 2009 - 4:56pm

I really like the first one:

This legislation instructs the Department of Labor to promulgate a rule to allow
employers who participate in interstate commerce and whose state has a minimum wage
higher than the federal minimum wage to include the value of health care benefits
provided to an employee in determining the wage such employer is required to pay.

Another way to keep the poor in their place.

Toy
October 27, 2009 - 12:50pm

Rep. Tom Price (Ga.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), revealed the schism within his party late last week.

“There’s a difference of opinion over what ought to be the strategy from a political standpoint on this issue. I happen to believe we ought to have a bill. There are others who believe, as strongly, that the principles that would be outlined and would be adhered to in the Republican bill are what need to be discussed because everybody can embrace those principles,” Price said last week.

The RSC has proposed its own healthcare reform plan.

Adding to the frustration is the fact that GOP leaders promised in June that they would introduce a leadership-endorsed measure.

That's from The Hill today. So what's really going on is that there's an intra-GOP schism which is keeping the RSC's "ideas" (as you call them) from actually being heard. In other words, it's the conservatives themselves who are ignoring ideas from the Right.

But you're saying its the fault of liberals.

I think you're lying again.

TheMan
October 27, 2009 - 4:54pm

If you look at the set of proposals each one ends with:

Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat majority have not considered this bill in
committee or on the House floor.

That is because she has not even seen these proposals because none of them have yet to make it out of the committees.

Having said that, there are some decent proposals here but they are all drops in the bucket and none of them address the spiraling costs imposed by the healthcare industry. Most of them are tax cuts or expansions of current spending. While tax cuts may make it more affordable initially it does not address the underlying problems and by cutting taxes all you do is add to the deficit (although our supply-siders here will disagree).

Toy
October 27, 2009 - 12:40pm

Brendan, the Republican leadership has yet to present a health care plan. Those are just facts. Your claims here are meaningless. There are also ultra-liberal single-payer bills languishing.

If the Republican leadership had a real plan, they'd provide one, don't you think?