Again and again and again and again, etc and so on, President Obama has called for bipartisanship (which most of us know is just mule fritter dressing), yet, today, DanPfeiffer, the White House communication director, destroys that same (disingenuous) Obama meme while he himself calls hypocritically for bipartisanship, using the forum of the official White House website
Will the Republicans Post Their Health Plan… and When?
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. 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. 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.
The Politico smacked Robert Gibbs around yesterday for the same stupidity, namely that the GOP doesn’t have their own plans, you know, those same ones they were waving in the air during the Barry speech to Congress when Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” They point out that there is a link on the White House website to the GOP plans.
I guess this is what Obama means by “post partisan.” It’s rather disgusting that the Obama White House website, the official website of the POTUS, not meant to be for Obama’s personal use, has now been turned into a partisan attack site. It is supposed to be for all Americans. If Obama wants to do this, let him buy a domain and pay for hosting himself.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU
It seems that you’re not understanding what Pfeiffer was asking for. Yes, both parties in both houses have plans. However, the President has not come out with a plan that bridges the differences between the Senate and House plans. Pfeiffer is now calling for the Republicans to do the same — come up with a “consensus plan”. This, they haven’t done.
So you want the Republicans to come up with a consensus plan for a plan that they 100% don’t agree with? I believe their plan is to start over and allow their input on it this time.
Here is a better plan for Barry in advance of the upcoming “summit” (which is nothing more than a dog and pony show). Since apparently the starting point for the White House is this $1 trillion abomination, why not send the Republicans a list of items from this “consensus plan” that he has come up with on which the Democrats would be willing to compromise.
Of course, those points will never come and it will simply prove the point that Obama and the left have no intention of compromising, they are only grandstanding for a disgruntled public because their approval ratings are tanking and they want to be able to say they did something in the time that the Democrats controlled both the Congress and the Presidency other than ballooning the debt and taking over the Auto industry and a portion of the banking industry.
Way to change the subject, manbearpig. The argument was made that Pfeiffer asked for something that already exists, but that is untrue.
As to your argument, the Dems have ALREADY compromised. Some Democratic ideas have been scrubbed, such as the public option, and some Republican ideas have been added, such as selling insurance across state lines.
The problem is, you guys don’t want compromise. You want one of two things. You either want all of your ideas and none of the Democrats’ ideas, which is not how democracy works, or you want to gut the plan, only to not vote for it in the end anyway. Neither of these are the result of a genuine request for compromise.
You complain about how liberal, or socialist, this plan is, when it is very similar to something that was previously backed by Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Tom Daschle. This is a fairly centrist plan. All of this talk disingenuous talk of “compromise” is nothing but political grandstanding.
So quit the act. If you want no part in providing help for the needy and the sick, just say so. Don’t put on a show and pretend that you do when you don’t.
Say what? Compromised? Obama’s “plan” is just a combination of the House and Senate bills, ones the public has already said it HATES. But, we’ll see come Thursday during the meeting if Obama is interested in listening, or just pushing his “plan”.
1. So you admit you were wrong about the Republicans not offering what was being asked for?
2. Does EVERYTHING you say have to be untrue? Can you find truth in anything? I mean, do you REALLY think that the entire country “HATES” both the House and Senate bills? The vast majority of the country would be either helped or unaffected by it, so I’m not sure how that makes sense.
3. By “listening”, I’m assuming you mean “using all of our ideas so we can have something even better to not vote on”. That’s been the approach thus far, anyway.
4. Oh, and I didn’t see you refute the fact that this plan IS a compromise. In fact, it started as a centrist plan. You people with your over-blown rhetoric make the Democrats’ proposals out be socialist, when they look nothing like a single-payer system. That argument alone discredits you, and shows what you’re really interested in (doing nothing).
Yes, it is a compromise… of 2 different democratic plans. Plans that were written with no input from Republicans, behind closed doors. When Republicans tried to offer amendments, they were denied, so how is that a compromise?
The Republicans have offered ideas time and time again and they have fallen on deaf ears.
And just because you say the “vast majority” of the country would benefit from this doesn’t mean that everyone likes it. Those are two completely different ideas.
As for a single payer system, this is the first step toward a single payer system, as much as you don’t want to admit that it is. If my company right now offers health insurance and it is cheaper for them to pay the penalty to the feds than pay for insurance for the employees, how does that enable me to keep my current insurance plan? It is a veiled lie by the government.
Oh, and by “listening” to the Republicans I assume you mean, “tell me what you want to do, and I’ll just tell you, no that won’t work, let’s go with our idea”.
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. As soon as the Democrats prove that isn’t true, I’ll be more than willing to hear what they have to say.
you mean something like this:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2520
No, I explained for you how Republican ideas were included and Democratic ideas were left out. Any specific rebuttal to those claims, or are you just going to ignore them and reiterate your argument again? I know you don’t THINK it’s a compromise, but that doesn’t make it so.
Be more specific. What specific scenario are you setting up, and what percent of Americans could it affect? Don’t come at me with a vague description of an unrealistic scenario, invented solely for the purpose of knocking down healthcare reform.
Really? I just explained that I know that they have plans in the House and Senate, but that they are being asked to present a plan that puts those two ideas together.
so let me get this straight… you want the Republicans in the house to debate and agree on a plan, and have the Republicans in the Senate to get together and agree on a plan, then come together and hash out the differences of their plans? Now had the Democrats allowed their input in the first place that is what we would be looking at isn’t it? Instead they are shut out, have to try and get things put into the pieces of garbage that did get passed, get stoned, and now they are being told “where is your compromise?” this sounds to me like you are advocating (2) governments, one for the party in power and one for the party out of power. Is that what you are saying?
As for a “specific scenario”, it can’t be painted any clearer, and if you are too dense to see it that isn’t my fault.
Again, I say the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Please tell me how their future behavior will be any different than the past? Just because you say it will? Please excuse my skepticism.
So basically, it seems that you’re agreeing that the Republicans have not provided what has been asked of them, contrary to Teach’s claim of the opposite, since you’re moving on to whether that request is legitimate?
I already explained for you that Republican ideas WERE incorporated. Why do you continue to repeat this lie?
Right. I’m too dense to fill in the wholes in your vague scenario… Let me help you understand where you weren’t specfic enough, since you apparently can’t figure it out for yourself. How big is your company? What kind of plan do they offer? How much does it cost? What would be their penalty? Who gets the penalty and what is it used for? What percent of Americans fit into this same scenario? I want to know that you have a legitimate argument against the proposed bill, and not just another empty talking point.
Too the contrary. your argument is flawed in that you want the Republicans to begin with a plan that has been worked out by the opposite party and come to resolution on it. If they come back and present a plan, like Ryan’s, you and Pfieffer whine that “they didn’t use our plan”. What you are essentially doing is answering my point that the Democrats don’t care. What the White House should be doing is saying “this is what we have, and this is what we are willing to compromise on, so what do you propose”. Which is what I have been saying from the beginning.
To analogize for you since you can’t seem to understand, it’s like when Barry took over Iraq and Bush already had things worked out. Barry came in and agreed to just stick to the plan that had already been worked out. This is what you want the Republicans to do with Health Care.
You keep saying this, however, I saw nothing in the summaries posted that had anything to do with the Republican proposals. Please show me where he says that I can purchase an insurance policy from a company in Georgia if I live in California. If you are referring to setting up a “national exchange”, that isn’t the same thing. I don;t need to go thru a national exchange in order to get an auto insurance policy from a company in Texas, why should I have to do it for my health insurance?
In fact, while we are at it, all I see on the White House site is summaries of what he proposes in order to merge the House and Senate bills. We heard his proposals at his address to Congress last year and we saw how much the Congress stuck to that now didn’t we?
Your questions are irrelevant. If the government makes it so that the company I work for can save money by simply dropping coverage for their employees and paying the penalty to the government instead, then explain to me how that allows me to keep the plan I am on? That argument would only work if I self-insure; which I won’t be able to do once the government takes over the system.