GOP's Health-Care Strategy Is 'Death By A Thousand Paper Cuts'

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http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1905343,00.html?xid=rss-politics


The GOP's New Health-Care Alternative. Join the Line
By Jay Newton-Small / Washington Wednesday, Jun. 17, 2009


House Republicans on Wednesday introduced their official alternative health-care-reform plan. Well, kind of. It's not the official alternative, but it has the support of the leadership. And sure, some leaders may support other alternative bills out there, but this one also has the support of the top Republicans on the relevant committees. Oh, wait — some of them may also support other bills. But in any case, all this should remind you that the GOP does really stand for something.

Let's leave aside for the moment that this plan was a four-page exercise in public relations that left out how many of the 47 million uninsured Americans would be covered, how it would be paid for or even how much it would cost. The plan — and the four others introduced by Republicans in the House and five more in the Senate — is indicative of how the GOP is handling Democratic efforts to pass universal health care: death by a thousand paper cuts. "There'll be lots of Republican plans. I think that many of our members will want to be part of this plan," Representative Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican in charge of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, said upon leaving Wednesday's press conference. "And there will be Republicans who sponsor this plan and who sponsor other plans that have slightly different ideas than this plan. On health care, we are truly the party that brings the ideas to the table that are much more innovative than the government taking over the health-care system."

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If you're feeling dizzy, that's the point. Republicans have been unified in their opposition to Obama's stimulus and his budget, but they know they risk being permanently dubbed the Party of No. Nor can they take the tack Democrats have taken in the Social Security debate: health care isn't working just fine as it is. But their solution — to simply overwhelm Washington with different ideas they know will never pass — has its downsides.

"Competing ideas or plans look weak and show a divided opposition. Since most of what the minority members do is criticize the majority ideas, they look like a party of no even if they have some ideas of their own," says Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "The early all-out opposition of Republicans to the stimulus plan, and the exultation that House Republicans showed when they voted unanimously against it, created this image of a party of no, which is hard to shake."

What's more, all their ideas and competing plans may be creating a bit of sensory overload. "I started reading a couple, three of the Republican plans, but frankly, there's only so much time in the day," says Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, who is authoring one of the leading Democratic plans. "I've started to spend more time with Republicans who are amenable to health-care reform and say to them, 'What would you like? What do you think?' That kind of thing. That's how I use my time. What's viable — that has a higher priority."