Wednesday, December 16, 2009

This Just In From the Loyal Opposition

I did a Google search for "republican health care reform proposals" just now. The first result was paid, from Bulletin.AARP.org, and was from August.

The second result was a CNN story about the GOP wasting a day by requiring that the Dems' proposed bill be read out loud in the Senate.

Third result: from GOP.gov itself. What is GOP.gov talking about? "Nancy Pelosi's 1900 page bill…." Is that what anyone's talking about this week? Then there's a list of ten bullet points of the GOP's "plan" that uses words like "encourage, allowing, promoting." There's a tort reform bullet point (bad lawyers, bad!), a unjust insurance company bullet point (bad Aetna, bad Blue Cross, on Donner and Blitzen), a healthy lifestyles bullet point (bad all of you unhealthy people), a health savings account bullet point (don't we already have those?) and a few others. Then GOP.gov ends with this:

Scorecard: Speaker Pelosi’s Government Takeover vs. GOP Common-Sense Solutions

Speaker Pelosi’s Bill/GOP Alternative

Job Losses
Up to 5.5 million/0

Medicare Cuts
$500 billion/0

Tax Increases
$729.5 billion/0

Lot of detail to sink your teeth into there, huh? Almost as vacuous as Change You Can Believe In and Yes We Can.

Clicking to Google News results for the same search, pretty much nothing except more articles about filibusters and all day readings of the Dems' bill.

I'm going to send an Email to both of my Republican Senators asking just what are the nuts and bolts of what they propose we do. I'm going to be civil and polite, using words that might make the lowly staff person charged with responding think they have a shot at my vote, I'm just a concerned citizen. I'll share the boilerplate pap I get in response.

2 comments:

The Curmudgeon said...

A pox on all their houses, I say. Of course, when the Republicans come down with the pox, their claim will be denied as preexisting... and the Democrats will have to face a death panel concerning theirs....

fermicat said...

No one from either side seems willing to let any "Facts" get in the way of their rhetoric. Very discouraging, because whatever mess that gets cobbled together and passed won't solve the problem.