http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/house-republicans-introduce-health-care-bill-without-boehner-or-blunt/House Republicans Introduce Health Care Bill — Without Boehner Or Blunt
Okay, the tale of the missing House GOP health care bill has taken another intriguing turn: A group of House Republicans has created a bill — but without the GOP leadership, which still has yet to unveil its own.
CBS News reports that GOP Rep. Tom Price and the Republican Study Committee (RSC), a group of House conservatives, is set to unveil its own health care bill, the “Empowering Patients First Act.”
But here’s the thing: Neither GOP House leader John Boehner nor Roy Blunt, the head of the House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, had any role in creating it, RSC spokesman Brendan Buck confirms.
Boehner and Blunt have been promising a bill for some time. Boehner recently said the GOP was putting the “final touches” on a bill, though he didn’t say whether it would be released. Blunt recently seemed to suggest that the GOP had decided against creating a bill, but then clarified that there could very well be one soon.
Buck, the RSC spokesman, said the RSC had always intended to introduce a separate bill. “We’ve always imagined we’d put out our own,” he said.
Still, Dems are likely to seize on this to ask where Boehner and Blunt’s bill is — and why they, unlike their RSC colleages, haven’t been willing or able to produce one yet. This latest, incidentally, comes as Blue Dog Dems have struck a deal with House colleagues to move forward on the Dem health care plan.
But whatever you do, don’t say there isn’t a GOP health care bill!