by Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
Washington Examiner
10/31/09
House Republican Leader John Boehner gave the Republican radio address today, and in 568 words made a simple and compelling case for what is wrong with the Democrats’ 1,990-page health care proposal — and for what should be done instead.
“This 1,990 pages of bureaucracy will centralize health care decision making in Washington, DC,” Boehner said. “It’ll require thousands of new federal employees. It’ll put unelected boards, bureaus, and commissions in charge of who gets access to what drug and what potentially life-saving treatment.”
“The best way to get a sense of what Speaker Pelosi’s takeover of health care looks like is to actually look at it,” Boehner continued. “Just shy of 2,000 pages, it runs more than 620 pages longer than the government-run plan Hillary Clinton proposed in 1993.”
Boehner then offered four proposals to improve the health care situation in America — not a universal fix, but four significant improvements:
Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines;
Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do today;
Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs; and
Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it’s good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.
No doubt the White House and Democrats in Congress will continue to insist that Republicans “have no plan.” But Boehner’s four proposals are contained in fleshed-out legislative form in several GOP reform bills. They really exist. You can check them out.
The rest of the article, containing the text of Leader Boehner’s radio address, continues here.
