New GOP-Led “Health Solutions Group” Seeks Smart Reform

By Joseph Russell – Talk Radio News Service

Republican leaders in the House called for “smart reform” at a press conference Thursday. The new Health Solutions Group, comprised of House Republicans from committees dealing with health care reform, said that as more Americans raise objections to a government take-over of health care, President Obama becomes less specific.

“The president really presented the American people with a false choice,” House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said. “There are only two ways, either the status quo or a government health care plan. We’re here to say that there really is a third way.”

The Health Solutions Group heard testimony from Canadian citizens and British doctors like Shona Holmes who claimed her life was saved by leaving Canada and coming to the U.S. for treatment. Holmes said that 5 million people in Canada go without a family doctor, a percentage that would equal “the same population as in the State of California.”

House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) was more focused on the impact Obamacare, if passed, will have on small businesses. “Either you offer health insurance to your employees or you pay an eight percent payroll tax,” Boehner said. “What this is going to do is raise the cost of employment, which is going to mean less employees in America. . . according to their bill, they’re going to lose about five million jobs.”

House GOP leaders said that growing bipartisan disapproval for a government run health care bill is going to make it difficult for House Democrats to continue to ignore Republicans, who argue that they have been left out of the process. Though unlikely, the Democratic health care proposal, over 1,100 pages long, may still be voted on before the Congressional recess in August.