Let’s get a study committee together to tease out the meaning of the word “major”:
House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office issues a statement today claiming that Democratic health care reform proposals “do not implement a single major GOP reform that would lower costs for families and small businesses.”Oh, please.
Three of the 11 pages in the plan Obama released Monday focus on tackling “waste, fraud and abuse,” a key Republican goal. Seven of the 14 bolded proposals in that section are credited to a House bill authored by Illinois Republican Mark Kirk.
Another proposal to create a comprehensive database of sanctions against doctors for misusing Medicaid and Medicare was lifted from the Republican Study Committee. Obama took the idea for a real-time database of claims – to more quickly detect possible fraudulent payments – from an amendment that another Illinois Republican, Rep. Peter Roskam, made during a markup in the House Ways and Means Committee.
Boehner’s office responded by saying these weren’t “major” enough. Seriously.
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