Fox, you're not helping...

Mitch, John, you both need to stop being less than honest...


Fox is gleefully reporting on the 35 plans and proposals that the GOP has forwarded to Committee, and been shut down, ON EVERY ONE!

The partisan politics of a majority? Oh NOES! Demons! Witches! Un-Americans in your Communist Committees! And your stoopid House and Senate Rulz!  The Founding Fathers didn't have rules, they had muskets! And cannons!

And feet wrapped in rags because they were too poor and unpaid for years, traipsing around nearly getting their tails shot off by British and German mercenaries, and hoping that they didn't get too close, because the Colonials rarely had bayonets...

But kidding aside, it is an interesting analogy. Since, our the Republican plans are in abundance, and likewise, none too well equipped to face Committee.  Which is far more the reason for their being shut down.

Let's examine the bills that they're talking about. The MANY...

Patients' Choice Act

Introduced: May 20 by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.

Summary: This plan offers refundable tax credits of $2,290 to individuals and $5,710 to families to pay for health care. It would create marketplaces to offer insurance choice and make more private insurance options are available to consumers without creating a public insurance system. It would create independent health courts to resolve malpractice disputes outside the current system.

This is essentially a hope to make an end run around malpractice suits, and put them outside the regular court system. Which has worked very well, considering the mandatory arbitration system that many insurers require you sign if you happen to have a beef with them. Oddly enough, arbitration goes to the companies, who see the same arbiters, and hire them, so there is a vested interest in keeping a client happy.  This is a non-starter from the get go. By both sides. It's cute, but not just unworkable, tacking on the tax credit is just a little bit of lipstick on the pig.


Health Care Choice Act

Introduced: July 14 by Arizona Rep. John Shadegg.

Summary: This plan allows consumers to purchase health insurance in other states

Another non-starter. It is an assault on states' rights, and the only possible work around would be invocation of the Commerce Clause, which would allow the Fed to regulate ALL states' regulations, which would piss off states, piss of the insurance industry who would lose the ability to play states off one another to host their claims centers, and it would likewise ruin then their only chance at using the hammer of NAFTA then to cave in individual states to the compliance of the one state with the least onerous rules. This is an all out look to crush states' rights, and it stuns me that John Shadegg sponsored this tripe, because I'm fairly certain that he's bright enough to know that is exactly what it is.

Empowering Patients First Act

Introduced: July 30 by Georgia Rep. Tom Price.

Summary: This plan would extend tax deductions on health care premiums to the individual market and offer a low-income tax credit of $2,000 to individuals, $4,000 for couples and $5,000 for families. The plan would also allow employer to offer discounts for healthy habits.

The least offensive on that list. And least effective. It isn't a plan, it's a foot note.

Oh, wait. Unless you read further into this one.

Reforms the medical liability system - Establishes administrative health care tribunals, also known as health courts, in each state

There apparently WILL be Death Panels, and Georgia's Representative Tom Price is going to give them to us.

Access to Insurance for All Americans Act

Introduced: July 31 by California Rep. Darrell Issa.

Summary: This plan would allow consumers to enroll in the same health care plan for lawmakers and federal employees. It also allows employees to transfer their coverage when they change jobs.

Essentially, discussion of the public option makes this actually superfluous. Not a bad step, but too little, too late, and it is a nice flip of an extra coin or two to the Senate and Reps favorite insurance providers.

Patient-Controlled Healthcare Protection Act of 2009

Introduced: July 31 by Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert

Summary: This plan provides incentives for consumers to purchase private insurance with a high deductible while paying into an unlimited Health Savings Account.

A thinly veiled tax shelter. Nice guys. No one will see through that...

I will admit, I haven't delved into all 35, but if they are all the non-starters that these ones that they felt comfortable enough to send out under public scrutiny, then I can only imagine what the ones that didn't make the cut were like.

There IS work being done to make compromises, but throwing out plans that you KNOW won't pass, most of them not even on the Republican side, let alone Democrats, isn't remotely a fair to make the complaint of being muzzled. These are the ones that have been in the toybox for years, and haven't been able to be put forward--and I do sort of get a chuckle at taking a swipe at tort reform as "health care reform"--but part of them not getting through Committee, is that none of them were able to get out of Committee when the GOP had both the House and Senate themselves. And if they won't pass muster in Committee when you're in charge, what makes you think that a Democratic Congress is going to make them somehow magical?

Yes, Mitch, and John, you have plans. But they suck, and you know they suck, and that's most of the reason that they didn't make it out of Committee, and then throwing them up to Fox to say, "See, we're trying to get things through, but the Doodyheed Democrats won't listen!" is sort of beyond disingenuous. It's a lie.

And I'm tired of my leadership thinking that I'm functionally retarded. This is akin to the grand Republican Budget As Flow Chart, only with a lot more verbage, and a lot more suck.

Throwing junk legislation that a Republican Congress wouldn't pass, isn't coming up with your own plans, or working for compromise. At this point, let the Gang of Six do your jobs for you.  She's not posing for photo ops, because she's too damn busy hammering out a deal, you dumbasses...

Originally posted on Fri Sep 11, 2009 at 00:17:28 AM EDT at The Motley Moose