By James R. Riffel,
At a Republican conclave in San Diego Thursday, a Republican governor bashed President Barack Obama’s healthcare proposal.
Kicking off a three-day summer meeting of the Republican National Committee, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., who is considered a GOP presidential prospect in 2012, said the president’s healthcare plan won’t work because you can’t control costs by spending more money.
He said Obama’s proposal to create a “government option” to compete with private insurance companies would set a bad precedent, although Medicaid and Medicare are already government-funded programs that compete with private insurance.
“We need to fight that,” Pawlenty said.
Instead, he said the GOP needs to support healthcare reform that limits lawsuits, toughens standards for medical malpractice claims, allows for the portability of insurance from one job to another, changes the focus from the numbers of procedures to better outcomes, and improves treatment of chronic illnesses.
Americans are beginning to realize the president is “wrong, wrong, wrong” on the issues, Pawlenty said.
He also said the party needs to return to their traditional values if they want to rebound from recent electoral losses and avoid becoming the “critics-in-chief.”
The party has dropped in popularity, but Pawlenty said it’s time to “move forward with confidence” because Republicans have the right ideas...
Read moreWe need to know the enemy...
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