Representative Charles W. Boustany Jr., a Louisiana heart surgeon, will respond for Republican to President Obama’s speech tonight on health care to a joint session of Congress.
How will Boustany rebut the President? Will he waste this speech running through the litany of problem’s with the President’s proposals? Will his most quotable lines be jabs?
I hope not. Tonight marks the potential tipping point for the United States economy. Tonight makes or breaks the President’s approach to health care reform. The President has charged that the Republicans don’t have an answer to the needs for health care reform. I have charged the same thing. Tonight I hope we will see a Republican plan that is so good and so well thought out that it removes the President’s plan from serious consideration.
Yesterday on the Today Show Newt Gingrich pointed to his Center for Health Transformation as having viable options. The Republicans in Congress say they also have options. Fine. Those are ideas, white papers, and political platforms. Tonight I want to learn the specifics of a Republican plan. I want to know how that plan will pull government out of health care in a way that will reduce cost. I want to hear what the bills will do that will help the unemployed and those with pre-existing conditions get good health care.
I want Boustany to tell America when those bills will be introduced into Congress (how about tomorrow morning??) and I want to see that the Republicans are behind him. Then, I want to see a major effort to explain, without resorting to hyperbole or nastiness, why the Republican plan is better than the Democratic plan for all the health care constituencies, from those that want to keep what they have to those that want a government run universal health care plan for everyone.
Am I hoping for too much?
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– Effective health care delivery –
* Basic treatments for all. Better coverage is paid by individual. We encourage folks to work hard and there is no more free lunch. The government can spend an agreed % of GNP on public health care.
* Prevention: voluntary and non-voluntary (via taxes) on smoking, fast food…
* Limit lawsuit award on malpractice.
* State-of-the-art treatments are less effective than prevention such as a low-dosage aspirin for all over 50 years of age.
* Stop illegals and foreigners from using our medical systems free.
Import foreign doctors and nurses is the worst we can do to a poor country.
Before we send soldiers abroad or explore space, should we solve our home problems such as health care first?
You may be asking too much. I, a democrat, recently wrote to my Republican Senator of Ohio and asked where the Republican plans were. Like you, I have an open mind, and am willing to listen to ideas from both sides. To my senator’s credit, I did get a response – but the response did not identify a plan of any type on the Republican side. Now I read there are supposedly three plans in writing and submitted to committees by the Republicans – but apparently my Senator doesn’t either know about them or doesn’t think they are worthy of mention. My senator did state however that he would support grant money being sent to the state’s so they could experiment with possible plans. Apparently, we cannot afford to insure people, but we can afford to send money to state bureaucrats to study the issue. I was not impressed, and frankly quite surprised, that after all this time (40 years . . . ) that was the best my Republican rep could come up with. At this point, I say pass the damn bill without them.