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Jackson5050 on 24 December 2009
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mrstickball said:

How were the Republicans supposed to negotiate with the senate Dems? Every quote I've read is that they requested to meet with Pelosi and Obama concerning HC reform, and were never allowed into the discussion.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52896

That links to 3 of the Republican bills - What were wrong with them to where they should not have been considered over the monstrosity that was just passed in the senate?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/CBO-Prepublican-health-plan-would-reduce-premiums--69270747.html

What is wrong with this bill, which would cut costs, and not require an egregious amount of money to fund?

 I understand the desire of insuring another ~36 million people, but when government healthcare is 80% more expensive than private insurance, I have serious doubts. I think that, regardless of party, we need HC reform, but by proposing a ~$800 billion dollar bill (like the dems did) is not going to fix the problem - it is only paying for the difference between those not insured, rather than tackling the root causes of the need for HC reform which costs nothing.

Well, approaching Pelosi or Obama would not pertain to the Senate. Regardless, the Republicans had chances to negotiate with the Democrats in the Senate. However, they were unwilling to compromise on key provisions. The Dems cut the public option, medicare buy-in, and other provisions and the Republicans were still unwilling to negotiate-even a moderate such as Snowe (R-ME). Honestly, the Dems were elected to majorities in both chambers of Congress. They do not have to remove every significant provision to placate the Republicans.

Why should the Republican bills have been derided and laughed at? First, the Republican bills not only fail to increase coverage (coverage does not even remain equal with population growth), they also reduce the deficit less than the Democrats' bills. Second, the central provision in the Republican bills is reducing costs by utilizing state insurance exchanges-essentially applying the Massachusetts exchange to other states. However, the Democratic bills already include that provision, and the House bill creates a national insurance exchange; incidentally, this is better than the state exchanges and is likely to emerge from the conference committee in the final bill. As I said, the only worthwhile Republican provision was malpractice reform.