(crossposted at GOPaint)
15 years ago, Orenthal James "OJ" Simpson took flight in Al Cowlings white SUV. It is only appropriate, on this anniversary, a man whose skin is the color of "OJ" (the tasty drink, not the aforementioned Simpson) is out parading a health plan which....surprise, surprise.....isn't a plan as much as a few talking points put on 4 pages.
Four pages. I kid you not. 47 Million uninsured, healthcare premiums escalating 20-30% every year, 20,000 Americans (at least) dying every year due to lack of coverage, health costs out-pacing wage growth at a mind-numbingly dangerous rate, and a trajectory that will see one out of every 3 dollars of the GDP spent on health care. House Minority Leader John "Tropicana" Boehner and Minority Whip Eric "I got Elvis Hair!" Cantor presented FOUR PAGES as the GOP solution to this huge mess more than 50 years in the making,
And they wonder why no one takes them seriously?
First, if you missed it, you can catch Boehner's nonsensical rambling here:
Cantor, not to be outdone on the ever so fun game of "Who can quote Frank Luntz the most"
Now what I don't understand is this: The GOP claims the Obama plan won't work. It's too expensive, it will lead to rationing, etc. Yet out of the other side of their mouth they claim it would destroy the private sector because private companies wouldn't be able to compete with the Government. If you've been paying attention to this debate at all, you know the Luntz talking point "Washington Takeover" (gasp!).
What they're saying is that the public option would kick the shit out of most private health coverage plans in terms of affordability and they don't want their buddies in the health care industry to lose their profits. You know, the profits they make by denying YOUR health claims. By denying YOU coverage because of a pre-existing coverage. By charging YOU $18,000 a year to cover a family of 4 (and not even including dental coverage for that price). The GOP's rhetoric on this is absolutely stupefying. They say we are going to end up with a "socialized medicine plan" like Canada (or Europe.....which isn't country but the GOP doesn't do nuance). What would be so bad about being like Canada?
Ten percent of Canada's GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada's. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.
What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.
They don't have any ideas except the same old crap: tax cuts, tort reform, states rights, competition (but only if the competition is between for-profit insurers....the companies that make money and pad their million dollar bonuses when you get sick).
Right now medical bills make up over 60% of bankruptcies. Some uninsured folks are electing not to receive potential life extending or saving treatments because they don't want to burden their families with the ridiculous costs. America has fallen behind almost every industrialized country and some Third-World countries in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality rates and other critical measures of health care. Yet we're paying more than ever. But, never fear, the GOP's FOUR PAGE plan is going to save us all.
I'd put in a transcript, but frankly he doesn't SAY anything. Probably because his shit-awful plan is FOUR PAGES. Sort of like the budget, the one that had no numbers, that Cantor and Boehner trotted out a few months ago:
Which, of course, led to a round of mockery and derision from the left, center and even a few conservatives. You'd have thought that the GOP would have learned their lesson. Nope. From Roll Call:
House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn’t know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.
Well when your plan, which you've had months to work on, is FOUR PAGES, I guess little details like "how much will this cost" and "will this cover any of the uninsured" aren't that important. Funny how the GOP can rail on the "exorbitant cost" of Obama's plan and not even bother to come up with an answer to how much their plan costs.
CNN has the summary of the "plan" here. There's no real solutions there. The few (only) ideas that are worth a damn are all ideas that Democrats have offered up at various times over the last 40-50 years. Of course, the brain dead ramblings of the GOP on the health care debate is why they are less trusted than the pharmaceutical companies and insurance providers when it comes to fixing health care. That's right, the American public thinks Big Pharma would do a better job reforming health care than the GOP.
Today's WSJ poll shows that 3 out of 4 Americans want a public plan. Not this shitty Co-Op system that Senator Conrad (pathetic excuse for a Democrat) is advocating, and CERTAINLY not the garbage that the GOP is pushing for. A word of advice to the Conservatives out there, ditch the Frank Luntz talking points and start coming up with real plans, with real ideas, and real numbers. Otherwise, you're going to be left looking like this: