Republicans react to Obama insistence on public plan inclusion

Jun 9 2009

President Obama's insistence on having a government-run public insurance option for the middle class risks bipartisan support for reform, Senate Republicans said in a letter to the White House released Monday, The Associated Press reports.

The letter - from nine Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee - says insisting on a plan when Medicare and Medicaid are already moving toward insolvency would be a mistake. It says that "'creating a brand new government program will not only worsen our long term financial outlook but also negatively impact American families who enjoy the private coverage of their choice,' said the letter, signed by all but one of the Finance Republicans."

"'Democrats know that if they go to a totally partisan approach like the president has suggested they're going to eat that the rest of their lives,' said (Sen. Orrin) Hatch, (R-Utah), who circulated the letter to Obama" (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/8).

Finance Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa - who sent two Twitter social networking Web site posts critical of Obama's involvement in the process over the weekend - and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., both signed the letter Dow Jones Newswires reports.

"The letter states that the result of a public plan option 'would be a federal government takeover of our healthcare system, taking decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of a Washington bureaucracy'" (Yoest, 6/8).

Bloomberg reports: "The question of whether to have a public plan is emerging as the most divisive issue between the political parties. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, has said he wants a bipartisan compromise on the 'public option' that can attract Grassley's support" (Litvan, 6/8).