Senate Republicans blast bill
Posted: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:04 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Congress, Republicans, Economy
From NBC's Doug Adams
The major Republicans on the Senate Health committee, as well as other notables senators like John McCain, held a press conference today to lambaste the Senate Democrats' health-care bill, which passed out of committee today on a party-line vote.
All were pretty critical of the plan. Lamar Alexander said the bill would bankrupt states because it would "dump 15-20 million Americans into a failed Medicaid system, and then after five years, shift the cost to the states."
McCain
argued, "This legislation has not ONE SINGLE provision that is aimed at reducing the cost of health care." He even alluded to his failed presidential bid, saying: "Elections have consequences. This is a glaring example of that. We have now again committed another act of generational theft. Of laying an unsustainable fiscal burden on future generations."
Mike Enzi said the bill, as fashioned, would "drive doctors out of the system." He criticized the public option part of the bill, saying it will ultimately lead to more than 100 million people being forced out of the private insurance they have now and into a government plan.
And Orrin Hatch said he thought the House plan for a tax to pay for health care is "a dead issue" in the Senate. He summed up Republican frustration by saying, "I don't care who you are -- you've gotta realize that they're spending too much. They're taxing too much to get us there... And they're writing legislation that is totally partisan ... that isn't gong to work!!"
