>Well, I've actually liked the GOP proposals that I've read. Yes, the ones that do in fact exist. (Claims that the GOP have offered no solutions are one of the most blatant lies of the entire process; it's simply objectively false. You may not like them but they exist...
It's funny, during these last few months of the debate, this topic has come up a large number of times among my social group (largely in a community and neighborhood messageboard startd as an alternative to my HOA board and in proper startup fashion now has advertisements).
There certainly are many examples of work done by the GOP in this area in the last administration (mostly around medication pricing), but as to this particular case the GOP has been very late to the party and has brought substantially no ideas to the table until very recently -- generally running and obstructive tactic vs. an alternative tactic.
I believe the alternative bill they presented a week or so ago was political theater mostly. There was no chance on it getting debated, voted on, or really seriously considered (particularly this late in the game), and the party knew that. That's why the opening portions of the bill didn't contain policy, but rather a stream of consciousness of party talking points. They simply wanted to be able to point to it and say "see? our ideas aren't even being considered!" knowing full well that most people won't have tracked the submission date of the bill. David Gergen offered a different but similarly minded analysis today.
What I thought was interesting is that, when I asked people, and threw out ideas almost a year ago now, the right leaning members of my community generally came up with some very good, feasible plans that addressed the bulk of this particular issues (no recision, no denial of coverage, must accept people for coverage even with preexisting conditions, balanced by an open market place, all insurance is moved nationally, breeding open competition etc.). But these weren't offered up by the Party (capital P) until many months later. Instead the Party chose to run a scare campaign that had very little to do with the actual contents of any of the proposed bills (including doing a Godwin and interjecting Nazis, which was clearly the point knew they had no appropriate counter argument in the wings anymore). It was wholly disappointing.
Again, the idea that Republicans did nothing but run an obstructionist campaign is pretty much objectively a lie. What is true is that only their obstructionism was reported in the press. That said, it's not like anything they wrote had a chance of getting passed, I am aware of that, and frankly at this point I'm not a fan of either party on this point as it's pretty clearly a choice between dumb and dumber (reader's choice as to which is which), but the putative "coverage" of Republicans has been blindingly biased. Not that the press has done much more than sit there and twitch feebly every once in a while.
(Further, I'd point out that as a minority, "obstructionism" is pretty much their job. The idea that this is evil rather suspiciously dates to January of this year, for mysterious reasons.)
Nice use of Thomas. I had forgotten about this bill, most likely due to the news media showing me some shiny new thing in a different direction while they hid this one under the rug. But if I'm not mistaken (which I'm more than happy to admit I may be in this case), many of the ideas in this bill were eventually moved into the current Senate bill and the just passed House bill.
But to be honest, the legal documentation is so voluminous and it's a moving target such that I can't keep track of all this. So I may be mis-remembering. The size is certainly a bug.
I would say that it's also bad thinking to think that none of the Republican proposals didn't find their way into the present legislation. I think that there were some good ideas put up by the Party that the Democrats also latched onto pretty fiercely. They claimed it was for bi-partisanship, but I think it's more to appear that they owned all the ideas in this debate.
>(Further, I'd point out that as a minority, "obstructionism" is pretty much their job. The idea that this is evil rather suspiciously dates to January of this year, for mysterious reasons.)
I pretty much agree with you on everything you wrote here except for this and that the obstructionist agenda was purely of the media's making.
I think it's a matter of semantics. "Obstructionism" can be one of a number of things. It can be pure stonewalling and obfuscation, or it can be a presentation of alternatives.
The Republicans in this case were relatively transparent, on my plane trip today I saw no less than 20 Republican backed advertisements against "Health Care Reform" -- unqualified. Some of the advertisements asked questions that made absolutely no sense "will it guarantee I can keep my provider?". Well, lady-acting-like-a-concerned-citizen, I've got news for you, you have no guarantee of that now! And several other examples.
Now the GOP may have been taking a two pronged approach, addressing both senses of "obstructionism", but considering that the agenda I heard came from the GOP itself via paid advertisements and spokespeople/heads of the party like Steele, there really wasn't much made of the alternatives. I would say it was an 80/20 effort.
It's funny, during these last few months of the debate, this topic has come up a large number of times among my social group (largely in a community and neighborhood messageboard startd as an alternative to my HOA board and in proper startup fashion now has advertisements).
There certainly are many examples of work done by the GOP in this area in the last administration (mostly around medication pricing), but as to this particular case the GOP has been very late to the party and has brought substantially no ideas to the table until very recently -- generally running and obstructive tactic vs. an alternative tactic.
I believe the alternative bill they presented a week or so ago was political theater mostly. There was no chance on it getting debated, voted on, or really seriously considered (particularly this late in the game), and the party knew that. That's why the opening portions of the bill didn't contain policy, but rather a stream of consciousness of party talking points. They simply wanted to be able to point to it and say "see? our ideas aren't even being considered!" knowing full well that most people won't have tracked the submission date of the bill. David Gergen offered a different but similarly minded analysis today.
What I thought was interesting is that, when I asked people, and threw out ideas almost a year ago now, the right leaning members of my community generally came up with some very good, feasible plans that addressed the bulk of this particular issues (no recision, no denial of coverage, must accept people for coverage even with preexisting conditions, balanced by an open market place, all insurance is moved nationally, breeding open competition etc.). But these weren't offered up by the Party (capital P) until many months later. Instead the Party chose to run a scare campaign that had very little to do with the actual contents of any of the proposed bills (including doing a Godwin and interjecting Nazis, which was clearly the point knew they had no appropriate counter argument in the wings anymore). It was wholly disappointing.