GOP's Health Care Rant

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Dec. 25, 2009
All Rights Reserved.                    

              Ranting about President Barack Obama’s recently passed health care reform bill Dec. 24, Republicans decried the legislation a budget-buster, destined to drain the federal treasury, despite the independent Congressional Budget Office report that promised to shrink the deficit by $132 billion in 10 years.  Over a relentless GOP propaganda, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) cobbled together the 60 votes needed to block a Republican filibuster, sending the bill to a House-Senate conference committee to clean up loose ends.  Charging Democrats with destroying U.S. health care system, Republicans can’t account for the bill’s endorsement by the American Medical Assn. and American Assn. of Retired People, both believe the legislation will help fix a broken health care system.   Republicans charged Democrats with fiscal extravagance, despite the CBO’s projections.

            When Republicans in 2003 under former President George W. Bush passed the Medicare prescription drug bill, it left the federal budget with an unfunded $500 billion liability.  “It was standard practice not to pay for things,” said Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Ut.), saying things are different today because of the recession.  Saying Medicare Part D “has done a lot of good” despite adding to the deficit, Hatch couldn’t accept Obama’s sweeping reform bill.  Since Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) exposed GOP strategy July 20 calling health reform Barack’s “Waterloo,” not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for the legislation.  Republicans applauded Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) Dec.13 for threatening to filibuster over the Medicare-at-55-provision.  When eliminated and Lieberman signed onto the bill, the GOP lashed out, calling his vote ill-advised and irresponsible.

              Once touted for his common sense and superior wisdom, Lieberman reviewed with a fine-toothed comb all the details of the Senate bill.  He concluded based on thoughtful analysis that once the Medicare-at-55 provision was removed, the bill had sufficient merit and potential benefit for passage.  Despite Lieberman’s approval, not a single GOP senator signed onto the legislation, signaling the kind rank partisanship that plagues Washington.  Calling the GOP on the carpet, former Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Treasury Dept. official Bruce Bartlett couldn’t stomach the hypocrisy, writing an op-ed in Forbes Magazine titled, “Republican Deficit Hypocrisy.”   “As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt,” calling his Party out.

            Obama’s biggest GOP Senate critics, including Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), all voted for Bush’s Medicare drug bill but vehemently oppose Obama’s health care reform. All three senators represent poor and middle class voters currently without health insurance.  What makes the partisanship so egregious now is the fact that the GOP—both in the House and Senate—uniformly oppose the bill.  Obama can’t count on one Republican vote.  If asked in private, most GOP elected officials see merit in reforming the nation’s broken health care system.  They especially look forward to preventing the insurance industry from discriminating against self-employed individuals and small businesses that can’t get coverage for individuals with preexisting medical conditions, a widespread problem

            During “W’s” eight years, the government had no problem spending nearly $1trillion on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Passing Medicare Part D, the prescription drug bill, was Bush’s crowning achievement.  His decision to go to war in Iraq cost his administration and the GOP the prestige and credibility, propelling Obama into the White House and Democratic control of the House and Senate.  “W” ran up the biggest deficits in modern history, caused by unnecessary wars and expanding Medicare.  “Dredging up history is no the way to move forward,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), an early supporter of Barack’s plan but recent GOP hardliner.  “It’s a question of what’s in this package,” insisted Snowe, brushing aside Democratic criticsm.  She knows that GOP opposition has been about only politics, not the merits of the bill now moving to a House-Senate conference committee.

            When Republicans turned against Lieberman, whose filibuster threat ended what’s left of a  “public option,” it exposed the ugly truth about GOP opposition to health care reform:  They did everything possible to hand Obama a political defeat.  GOP and Democrat constituents all need health care reform, especially the 30-million-plus citizens that have no health insurance.  No elected official wants to enact legislation that adds to ballooning budget deficits and harms the U.S. economy.  Obama’s Dec.1 decsion to add 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan is expected to cost the treasury $50 billion a year.  When added to his $871 billion over 10 years for health care, it’s no wonder there’s so much skepticism.  When a conference committee finally reconciles the House and Senate bills, Obama must think twice before letting the Pentagon take so much from the U.S. tax base.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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