Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) makes the points, aaaaaggggggain, how health care reform can happen without giving the government dictatorial control of our health.
As I watch this video, MSNBC occasionally flips a tag line: "Dems call GOP Bill too little too late." Republican bills have been around from the beginning of the process - meaning the beginning of the Time of Obama. Democrats have refused to even consider them.
House Republican alternative health care bill (summary HERE). Excerpts of the transcript below video.
Mike Pence - Republican Health Care Bill
Excerpts from Rep. Pence's website:
"Well
Republicans believe we listened to the American people that don't want
a government takeover of health care, but they do want Congress to act
to lower the cost of health insurance and lower the cost of health care
in the long-term. We think we do that by allowing Americans to purchase
health insurance the way you buy car insurance, across state lines.
Also allow groups of businesses in the city and on the farm to create
national insurance risk pools and buy insurance for their employees the
way that major corporations can but it today.
"You
put in medical malpractice reforms on a nationwide basis so nationwide
caps will reign in some of these runaway massive law suits that drive
defensive medicine and drive up the cost of premiums. And then you use
those savings, lastly, to strengthen the existing state funds and
insurance programs that cover people with preexisting conditions. We
believe we can do that all in a fiscally responsible way without
mandates, bureaucracy, a government takeover, or government run
insurance."
----
"I've
debated colleagues on this on the airwaves, on the floor, and in
private over it. There's a lot of talk about, you know, if you allowed
Americans to purchase health insurance as individuals or businesses
across state lines, that I've heard the word ‘race to the bottom,' but
you know, I think with extraordinary increase in the cost of health
insurance premiums, there's a lot of Americans, a lot of small
businesses out there that would like to race to the bottom of cost. And
I think that's the fundamental difference between the approach between
the Democratic majority and the White House and the Republicans'
approach.
"They're
launching this massive expansion of government bureaucracy, taxes, and
mandates to achieve what they call universal coverage, which is their
every right to pursue. We believe the American people are most
concerned about the cost of health insurance, the cost of health care,
and so our plans are designed to bring down the cost using the power of
the individual as you described."
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