Will the Republicans Post Their Health Plan… and When?

[bigtree]

from White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer at WHblog: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog

February 23, 2010

The President believes strongly that Thursday’s bipartisan meeting on health insurance reform will be most productive if both sides come to the table with a unified plan to start discussion – and if the public has the opportunity to inspect those proposals up close before the meeting happens.

That’s why yesterday the White House posted online the President’s proposal for bridging the differences between the Senate- and House-passed health insurance reform bills. The proposal puts American families and small business owners in control of their own health care. It makes insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle-class tax cuts for health care in history, it ends discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, holds insurance companies accountable, and reduces our deficit by $100 billion over the next 10 years.

But you don’t have to take our word for it: the proposal is posted right here at WhiteHouse.gov for everyone to examine (http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/proposal). You can read through the plan’s bipartisan ideas section by section, or you can select your health care status and find out what the proposal would mean for you. You can even submit a question for our policy staff to answer.

What you can’t do just yet is read about the Republicans’ consensus plan – because so far they haven’t announced what proposal they’ll be bringing to the table. To be sure, there are many Republicans who share the President’s conviction that we need to act on reform, and there are several pieces of Republican health care legislation out there. Previously we were told this was the House Republican bill (http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare). Is it still?

We look forward to hearing whether this the proposal they'll bring. The Senate Republicans have yet to post any kind of plan, so we continue to await word from them. As of right now, the American people still don’t know which one Congressional Republicans support and which one they want to present to the public on Thursday.

President Obama has been clear that his proposal isn’t the final say on legislation, and that’s what Thursday’s meeting is all about. But after a year of historic national dialogue about reform, it’s time for both sides to be clear about what their plan is to lower costs, hold insurance companies accountable, make health insurance affordable for those without it, and reduce the deficit. A collection of piecemeal and sometimes conflicting ideas won’t do.

As we said today, we’ll be happy to post the Republican plan on our website once they indicate to us which one we should post. We hope they won’t pass up this opportunity to make their case to the American people.

read: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/02/22/will-republicans-post-their-health-plan-and-when


A WH Walk Through of the President's Proposal

* – dive into the President’s proposal through a new section of WhiteHouse.gov. Go to the homepage, where you can find out what the President’s proposal means to you in plain English with answers to questions you may well have.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting

* Don’t see an answer to your question? Tell us what you want to know and we’ll try to answer some of the ones we hear most in the coming days.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/your-questions

* Read specifically about the President’s proposal, including what’s new, and a section-by-section rundown of what’s in the reform as envision by the President.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/proposal

* Read up on the Republican ideas included the President’s proposal.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/republican-ideas

* And get more background on the meeting itself – read the invitation, and see what the President has had to say about it.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/bipartisan-meeting

And of course, join us on Thursday at WhiteHouse.gov, where the entire bipartisan meeting will be streamed live.

read: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/02/22/a-walk-through-presidents-proposal

[Oregone]

1. The Democrats already posted it for them

Now, they gotta be against it to prevent a "win"

[gratuitous]

2. That's JUST what the Democrats would be expecting

Oh sure, they'd love to see the Republicans' plan. You know who else wanted to see plans? Hitler.

[Botany]

3. Let me take a crack at it .... the republican health care plan

1 Tort Reform
2 Protect the large insurance companies, big pharma, & for profit HMOs
3 Buy insurance across state lines
4 Tort Reform

[theoldman]

4. Tort reform did nothing to reduce medical expensis in Texas.

The only effect was for the insurance companies to make more money.

[Botany]

5. yes but it is a good talking point ..... them nasty lawyers are running up ....

.... health care costs. Although overall the legal costs are about 1% of the total spent on
health care ...... In Ohio too when they capped pay outs for medical malpractice
and mistakes not one doctor or health care group saw their insurance premiums
go down.

[bigtree]

7. some leaked provisions

1) Public Torture Option

2) Auctions Surgeries To Lowest Bidder

3) Sickness is Health

4) Don't get sick, or if you do, die quickly

(I totally stole these)

[gateley]

9. But well worth stealing! nt

[Ozymanithrax]

6. The Republican health plan is a pre-existing condition... They will never vote to change it.

[Arugula Latte]

8. They will post it just as soon as OJ finds the "real" killers.

[napi21]

10. FWIW, I read this AM that their plan is outlined in 3 different bills.

HR2520

HR4038

S1099

I started to read HR4038 but gave up after about 1/2 hr. From what I gathered, it was mostly dependant on a high risk group plan, similar to the ones that exist for auto ins. for people who can't get ins. directly from any co.

[zbdent]

11. Well, they did put in the request to have it written up ...

problem is, that was in 1936 ... and they haven't completed it yet ...