Met the Press was excellent this week. Gingrich, Dean and 2 senators were on the program discussing healthcare. The democratic senator was worthless, as he kept repeating the same talking points over and over without engaging in detailed discussions. Howard Dean was much better. Gingrich and the republican senator came across incredibly well with real questions about the healthcare plan.
Both republicans clearly stated reform is needed and that republican ideas have been brought forth, many just not included in the current congressional bill. Gingrich said its 80/20 right now. Most of congress agrees with 80% of the plan but 20% is heavily disagreed on. Gingrich said many of the items Obama talked about in the speech are not in the current plan. The president outlined some general ideas in 'his plan' but subsequently asked people to support the congressional plan...which are at least somewhat different. Why doesn't the president spearhead a revised bill?
Gingrich complained about the lack of details and hit the president hard on the amount of $ it would take to fund a public plan as several independent evaluations stated the public option would cost a lot more than estimated. The public option is unlikely to survive on participants paying into the system and there will be more than 5% of the population wanting (or forced into the public option).
The democratic senator admitted taxes would likely have to be raised to pay for the public option. Most of the pannel agreed that there would be much more money needed than trimming waste from medicare/medicaid. Gingrich said if there was so much waste, why wasn't it addressed years ago by congress. Medicare is set to fail in the next decade or so, the gov is not running it well.
Gingrich said the economy needs to be the top priority and reform should be passed that doesn't cost the gov or taxpayors a dime in a shit economy.
