WHERE IS THE GOP ALTERNATIVE?

While most Americans seem to be satisfied with their private health insurance, the cost of health care, if it continues to spiral out of control, will make that insurance unaffordable in the near future. That is why there is no question in my mind that this country desperately needs health care reform. Having said that though, I have some serious reservations about the Senate’s version of the health reform bill that all of that chamber’s Democrats finally agreed to last night.

For one thing, the bill is 2,700 pages long, thus making it incomprehensible for laypersons and probably for most Senators as well. Even Sen. Olympia Snow, the lone Republican to vote the health reform package out of committee, said she could not vote for the bill as it is now written.

Then there is the baloney put out by President Obama and the Democratic leadership that the cost of this bill will be paid for by cutting $500 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years. Yes, that's half-a-trillion dollars. They expect to do this by cutting out the waste and fraud in Medicare and by reducing the payment for services to hospitals and physicians.

They'll have a tough time eliminating the fraud. And cutting waste can mean only one thing – Medicare benefits for seniors will be cut! As for those reduced payments to hospitals and physicians, you can be sure that those providers will then charge patients for the amount of any government reductions. So us seniors will end up paying more for less!

Setting aside my reservations, where is the Republican’s alternative to the Democrat’s plan? The GOP claims that it has proposed many amendments. The Democrats claim to have incorporated many of the GOP amendments into the bill. The Republicans claim that most of their amendments were rejected.

I have yet to see one of those proposed GOP amendments. Maybe that’s because the media, which appears to be favoring the Democratic health reform bill, has deliberately avoided publishing reports of those amendments. But forget about those ghostly amendments. Where is the GOP health reform package? The Republicans have failed to offer any comprehensive alternative to the Democratic version of health reform.

The Republican’s solid opposition to the Democrat’s bill without an apparent alternative makes the GOP look like nothing more than a bunch of obstructionists. Because all the major polls show a majority of the country is opposed the Democratic bill, the Republicans apparently think they’re sitting in the catbird seat. But if they are viewed as obstructionists, the GOP tactics may come back to bite them in the ass when voters go to the polls.