Of mice and elephants: Healthcare politics and Roy Blunt
Roy Blunt
WASHINGTON — Roy Blunt will tell you there’s a whole lot wrong with the health-care reform plans that Barack Obama and the Democrats propose.
Ask the GOP congressman and Senate hopeful from southwest Missouri and he might begin by delineating his concerns about the so-called government option, in which a public-financed entity would be set up to compete with insurance companies in the hopes of bringing down costs.
“A government competitor would be like an elephant in a roomful of mice,” Blunt said this afternoon on CNN.
We bet that secretly, Blunt hopes the Democratic proposals stick around awhile – even though they could be imperiled by testimony Thursday by Congress’s chief budget officer that they don’t add up to the fundamental change that could put the brakes on skyrocketing health costs.
That assertion, which undermines a key argument for revamping the health-care system, landed like a stink bomb in congressional hearing rooms where Democrats are tussling with one another over how to pay for it all.
What’s this have to do with Blunt? As head of a House GOP’s Health Care Solutions Group, Blunt is sought out regularly by folks like CNN to offer his opinions on what ails the Democrats’ plans and where this pitched debate is headed.
Being a leader on health care gives him opportunities in Washington and back home in Missouri to speak on a matter of great concern to people beyond the politics of the moment.
What’s more, at a time when contributions are a barometer of success in fledgling campaigns, health care gives Blunt him the chance to raise money from insurance and health industry fat cats nervous about what the Democrats would do to them.
Think you’d be hearing the sound of so many checks ripping if the Democratic proposals suddenly collapsed in a smoldering heap?
There’s peril, of course. Even a canny politician like Blunt makes a mistake once in awhile, which he did a couple weeks ago when his ruminations about competition in the marketplace sounded like criticism of Medicare.
And one of these days, House Republicans will need to come up with a piece of legislation to couple with their unrelenting criticism of Democrats.
Reporters and regular folks likely will think it’s time demand to know precisely what Republicans would do to solve the vexing problem of runaway health-care costs instead of accepting generalities like Blunt deftly provided on CNN.
Wow, Mr. L, nice attack on Blunt and the GOP. I guess you have to tow the P-D line in order to keep your job up there in DC. Actually, if you did any real work once in a while instead of just getting your talking points from the White House, (did Rahm write this for you?) you would know that the GOP does have a plan, it’s just that “the Democrats won”
and they have no interest in including them or listening to any plan they have to offer. Thanks for nothing!
I’m thinking the Roy and the GOP are figuring that the growing - if historically mild - disenchantment with the Obama “Change” promise will release them from any sort of responsibility to provide an actual alternative plan. While my good close friend A CENTRIST seems to think one exists, its location is unknown, likely even to Roy. Maybe check in room 249 at the Welk Resort in Branson. Otherwise, Bluntstumperino.
When this K Street ho’ speaks, it is one of the rare moments when it removes its piggish mouth from the government teat to which it has been firmly attached for years.
“…Elephant in a room with mice…” How ludicrous and patently untrue. The current plans are still bonanzas to big pharma and the insurers who still retain monopoly-like strangleholds on our healthcare system. No importation of drugs from Canada or other countries—why not? A 12-year moratorium on generics—why??
Congress needs to get back to work, ’cause this current plan is underwhelming—not much of a change at all.
Roy BLunt is not equiped ethically to deal with medical problems. He divorced his wife of many years to marry a tobacco lobbist who arranged a high paying do nothing job for his son. This added to the funds Blunt accepts from vicelords leaves him unfit to serve in any capacity especially Senator. He and the rest of his cowardly Republican friends should be rounded up and horse whipped for dealing deadly substances to kids.
It is and it appears it will always be the business of Republicans in office to be die-hards in pushing special interest just as they are doing for the insurance industry right now with the Democrats healthcare plan. There are also a few Democrats of this same strip who are disgusting whores for special interests groups and lobbyists in the insurance industry.
The greatest difference between Republican Conservatives and Democrats as a whole is that Republicans would be okay watching their neighbors starve to death and die from the lack of healthcare just like their White South African brothers who have starving human beings and neighbors just yards from them who are in great need of medical attention while they ignore it only yards away living in luxury themselves.
Same with Republicans they CAN AND WILL watch their neighbors starve to death where Democrats will not. Republican Conservatives remind me so much of White South Africans except that in America, it will also be Whites who will be starving and in need of medical attention and unable to receive it along with all the others low on the totem pole.
This is the heart of the Republican Party and they just can’t help themselves because it is at the very core of their existence and they truly don’t care nor do they possess that Godly good emotion, “EMPATHY”. And, most of them are still the biggest distorters, they never change and is always distorting something because it is all these know how to do. Its a very fine line they walk of hypocrisy and just plain old evil deceit.
“It is and it appears it will always be the business of Republicans in office to be die-hards in pushing special interest just as they are doing for the insurance industry right now with the Democrats healthcare plan.
There are also a few Democrats of this same strip who are disgusting whores for special interests groups and lobbyists in the insurance industry.
D– Walker”
A few democrats? Surely you jest. The entire democrat party is beholden to its set of special interests. Only a fool such as yourself would fail to see that.
“The greatest difference between Republican Conservatives and Democrats as a whole is that Republicans would be okay watching their neighbors starve to death and die from the lack of healthcare just like their White South African brothers who have starving human beings and neighbors just yards from them who are in great need of medical attention while they ignore it only yards away living in luxury themselves.
D– Walker”
You have lost your mind. You compare Republicans to SOuth African, why dont you compare democrats to those who slaughter South African farmers? You are just feeding your own racist reality by trying to tie SA farmers to Republicans and health care. A question you should ask, if you could get past your blatant racism, is why are democrats purposely excluded themselves from their own health care proposals? If the program isnt good enough for them, it shouldnt be good enough for us.
“Same with Republicans they CAN AND WILL watch their neighbors starve to death where Democrats will not. Republican Conservatives remind me so much of White South Africans except that in America, it will also be Whites who will be starving and in need of medical attention and unable to receive it along with all the others low on the totem pole.
D– Walker”
You inadvertently expose the truth here (I say inadvertently because there is NO WAY you are intelligent enough to realize it on your own). Obamacare wont raise the level of health care to those you put in the privileged class, it will drag everyone else down to the lowest level for care. That is similar to the farming situation in SA, once productive farms are now stagnant under the weight of government regulations.
“This is the heart of the Republican Party and they just can’t help themselves because it is at the very core of their existence and they truly don’t care nor do they possess that Godly good emotion, “EMPATHY”.
D–Walker”
Way to group everyone you disagree with in one big group and label them all. Can you explain to me what “empathy” has ever solved? You are also incorrect that everyone you disagree with lacks “empathy”, I truly, deeply feel sorry for you and your lost existence.
“And, most of them are still the biggest distorters, they never change and is always distorting something because it is all these know how to do. Its a very fine line they walk of hypocrisy and just plain old evil deceit.
D– Walker ”
Yet you overlook the distortions by democrats: “Pass this $787B stimulus and unemployment will stay under 8%” It is now at 9.5% and climbing. “No taxes on anyone making less than (floating number)”. Cap and Tax will double your energy bill, increased tobacco taxes, Obamacare with a $1.5T price tag, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.
The democrat leadership (Pelosi, Reid, Obama) routinely lie and distort, yet you say nothing about them; who is the hypocrit? YOU ARE!
Si,
It is most certainly the politics of the REPUBLICAN PARTY in general today.
Si,
How does it make me racist because I have compared the politics of Republicans to that of the poltics of South Africa? Mr. Bright One, lets hear you explain theory. (lol).
Si,
You state:
“Obamacare wont raise the level of health care to those you put in the privileged class, it will drag everyone else down to the lowest level for care”.
Si, now, don’t tell me you didn’t know that the “priviledged class” or anyone else who desires will still be able to purchase private health insurance under the proposed health care bill unlike “social healthcare” that you find in places like Canada. What is being proposed is true choice here in the US, and your insinuating otherwise is DISTORTION.
But, “distorting” has become the motto for the Republican Party and all their little operatives like you.
D–, if you werent playing the race card, why did you even bring up SA and its farms? They serve no role in the health care debate, so one is only left with you bringing them up for the sole purpose of playing the race card. You say that it is Republicans who are racists; I didnt know Barbara Boxer switched parties, and if she did, you can have her back. I should also take this opportunity to remind you of the racist past (and present) of the democrat party: http://gopcapitalist.tripod.com/democratrecord.html.
As far as Obamacare and keeping your insurance; another lie. Read the bill, something your representatives and senators WONT do.
“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.”