 "Photo: Pete Souza")
I've heard a lot lately that the Republican Party is in favor of health care reform and that the Democratic Party just isn't letting them be a part of the process. Well, I say to them, where's the Republican's bill?
Watching the health care cage match last week, it was clearly evident that the Republican Party has absolutely no solution to our health care woes.
How serious are these woes? Currently, the actual amount of G.D.P. spent on health care in this country for government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, is about 17.7%. The 30 other industrialized countries with a universal health care systems spends an average of 8.9% of G.D.P. on similar programs.
Inaction - what the Republican Party has stood for since January 20, 2009 - would be catastrophic to our country, economy and well being. It is predicted that if nothing is done to reform our current system 275,000 Americans will die within the next 10 years as a direct result.
Just to let this sink in: Nearly 3,000 Americans died on September 11, 2001. As a result, the Republican Party acted swiftly, increasing government spending by 45% of G.D.P. Yet, when almost 300,000 Americans are expected to die after continuous warnings that the current system is too costly and must be reformed, the Republican Party sits on their hands.
The recurring theme of last week's health care summit was simple: The Republicans spewed talking points and sound bites exclaiming what they wanted in the health care bill. The Democrats responded by simply stating that all of the provisions the Republicans requested are in both bills!
Speaker after speaker, sound bite after sound bite, the Republican Party simply stated what they did not like about the Democrat's bill. All while this was happening, not once did a Republican state "this is in our bill, and we think you should consider it." Where was your bill, Senator McCain?
The Republican Party failed to deliver. And whether or not the Democratic Party has shut out the Republicans from the entire process of creating a bill, why didn't the Republican Party show up with a bill of their own? Why didn't they show up with any solutions?
It's simple. The Republican Party wants inaction. Their hopes, existing since President Reagan, would finally become a reality: the abolition of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The New York Times reports that if nothing is done about our health care system in this country "More of everyone's dollar will go to health care, and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid will struggle to find the money to operate."
Now, the Republicans in last week's summit kept repeating their mantra of "keep your government hands off Medicare" (Medicare is a government program...so I don't know what they're smoking).
However, the Republican Party has always wanted Medicare to get the ax. It's been a simple strategy since Ronald Reagan: cut taxes to the wealthy, increase government spending on defense, which results in continuous deficits, and blame the deficits on high government spending on programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and insist that the only way to solve the deficit problem is to cut these popular programs.
While the Republican party refuses to support any reform - on Healthcare, Energy and bank regulation - the total number of people uninsured is projected to increase by 1 million people a year.
In addition, health policy analysts are warning that the current system is "literally bankrupting the federal government."
So, the Republican party will continue to sit on their hands and say "no no no!" while preaching "don't cut Medicare!" when, in reality, they all go to bed at night and pray that their master plan works: bankrupt the United States, cut popular programs and kill 275,000 people all within ten years. If that's not irresponsible, I don't know what is.
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