Now, while I don't think Boehner (pronounced Bayner) really speaks for the entire republican party, he's a pretty powerful guy and one of the biggest opponents to Obama's reform plans. So of course, when he goes into the summit, he declines his opening statement, stays silent through six hours of some meaningful debate, and then says the same unproductive thing he's been saying for the past month: to scrap the bill. If you didn't watch the video, a commenter provided a transcript:
"Hey guys, I know you're the majority party and have spent an entire year hashing this bill out while Americans continue to lose coverage and face skyrocketing premiums, and we had eight years to pass some form of meaningful healthcare legislation, but let's just scrap the entire bill that we have been violently against since before it existed and start over with things that we agree on, which is nothing, so that you lose in 2010, the American public loses, and Republicans can get back into power to lower taxes on our broke government."
Anyway, to add some levity, here's a joke Obama made about Boehner and his orange skin color:
Oh, and one last thing. And this is almost completely unrelated so I won't embed it, but here's a super fun video this random guy made when he was in quarantine in a hospital for 2+ months because he had a TB infection. My favorite part is at 2:20.
Now, while watching this, I end up wondering how much keeping someone in quarantine for that long costs and whether the guy has to pay for it...but then I realize he's in Australia and their government program (called Medicare) pays almost all in-hospital costs.
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ReplyDeleteI was interested in reading the republican reform bill but found it really difficult to find a good site. If any one is interested I found this site that has the GOP and Pelosi bill:
ReplyDeletehttp://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/a_tale_of_two_approaches.pdf
I don't have any questions but a simple observation: the more I watch the health summit the more I realize this isn't about the patients but about politicians
What I don't quite understand is how the Republicans don't have any problems with the Postal Service, Public Libraries, or Police/Fire Departments, but one of the main recurring objections to a national health care system is that it shouldn't be controlled by the Federal government because it is apparently one HUGE step closer to Socialism.
ReplyDeleteAlso, although this might seem grossly oversimplified, I think that by now, most industrialized modern economy countries shouldn't be too different from the United States. These countries have cutting edge technologies in various fields, they have McDonald's and Starbucks, and they have functioning democracies. But why is it that Great Britain or Canada can set up national health care systems with relatively little fuss, but the United States continues to struggle with it for decades??
haha no offense Julie, but that's John Boehner's web site. I don't think you'll find too much unbiased information there..
ReplyDelete