Posted: March 3rd 2010
From The Rapid City Journal:
...The South Dakota Republican said the president's proposal is still too expensive and the provisions for paying for it will never be put into place.
Thune said the president is offering to sprinkle a few Republican ideas into a proposal that remains "a massive expansion of health care entitlements."
"The basic core elements of this bill do not change," Thune said in a conference call with reporters.
He said the president offered to expand the pilot program for medical malpractice reform, which is ineffective in its present form.
Thune said the Democratic health care plan raises taxes on small businesses and would impose massive cuts to Medicare.
He acknowledged that if nothing is done, premiums will increase for people who buy their health insurance on an individual basis, according to government estimates. But he said the Democratic plan would cause insurance premiums to go up even faster.
Thune said the Democratic provisions to pay for covering 30 million more Americans, including Medicare cuts and tax increases on high-end health insurance plans are not going to happen.
He said the tax on high-end plans was waived for labor unions and delayed until 2018 for everyone else.
Thune said the Democratic plan, even with the Republican ideas, contains "very little that constrains costs and lots of mandates that increase costs."
