Given that the Republicans are making a lot noise about the proposed health care reform, I felt it was important to document a few key items related to the Republicans participation in this debate.
1.) The current health care reform legislation has many Republican ideas. First, it does not contain a public option and it is a private market plan. Second, it also allows states the tools to create their own innovative reforms to lower costs. See the rest of the linked article for more.
2.) The Republican party believes that its future viability as a party rests on the healthcare legislation failing. Therefore, it has been the party of NO when it comes this legislation. Here is a money quote from Andrew Pavelyev:
“The only thing I can think of that does not violate any conservative principles articulated by various conservative spokesmen over the past couple of years is to do nothing (as far as the government is concerned) and hope that some private charity will pick up the tab. This approach might actually work (and in an ideal world I would in fact prefer it). But the inconvenient (for the purists) fact is that in the here and now we have to sell this (or any other) approach to the majority of voters. I’m afraid that as the number of people struggling with expensive chronic conditions grows, the “let them beg” answer is not only going to be unacceptable to a significant number of independents, but also even to significant segments of the Republican base, such as many evangelicals who are primarily motivated by social conservatism but are not very keen on free markets and are in fact quite sympathetic to “compassionate conservatism” (Exhibit A: Mike Huckabee). And, of course, if Republicans don’t offer convincing answers, the voters will turn to the Democrats.”
