PARSING THE MEANING OF THE WORD ‘MAJOR’…. House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office issues a statement today claiming that Democratic health care reform proposals “do not implement a single major GOP reform that would lower costs for families and small businesses.”
Three of the 11 pages in the plan Obama released Monday focus on tackling “waste, fraud and abuse,” a key Republican goal. Seven of the 14 bolded proposals in that section are credited to a House bill authored by Illinois Republican Mark Kirk.
Another proposal to create a comprehensive database of sanctions against doctors for misusing Medicaid and Medicare was lifted from the Republican Study Committee. Obama took the idea for a real-time database of claims – to more quickly detect possible fraudulent payments – from an amendment that another Illinois Republican, Rep. Peter Roskam, made during a markup in the House Ways and Means Committee.
Boehner’s office responded by saying these weren’t “major” enough. Seriously.
Look, this is one of the easier points of the debate. The Republicans’ “Solutions for America” page lists four health care planks — and the basic structure of literally all four is already included in the Democratic plan.
The White House devoted an entire section of its site on health care to highlighting the list of GOP ideas incorporated into the Democratic reform package — and it’s not a short list.
Republicans really should find something better to complain about.
