Republicans strategy: Instead of attack, call for incremental reforms

Download PDF Copy

Sep 16 2009

Republicans are planning to counter Democratic health reform proposals with a call for an incremental approach.

Roll Call: "With Democrats looking to paint the GOP as the 'party of no' thanks to its opposition to climate change and health care reform, Senate Republicans have begun shifting their rhetoric away from simple condemnations, arguing instead for an incremental approach to legislating."

Republicans said the new approach, which has been championed by [Republican Conference Chairman Sen. Lamar] Alexander and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) over the past several months, comes in response to increasing public discomfort with the federal government's efforts to tackle broad policy reforms. ... Additionally, it is politically much more difficult for Democrats to shoot down Republicans' plans, since by and large the targeted fixes advocated by the Senate GOP have been endorsed by Democrats in the past" (Stanton, 9/16).

NPR: "Republicans have written health bills, and they do generally agree with Democrats on some things, such as curbing insurance companies' ability to exclude people because of pre-existing health conditions. However, none of the Republican proposals include an insurance mandate, and many analysts say most of the Republican bills simply wouldn't do all that much to change the situation" (Rovner, 9/15).

This is part of Kaiser Health News' Daily Reports - a summary of health policy coverage from more than 300 news organizations. The full summary of the day's news can be found here and you can sign up for e-mail subscriptions to the Daily Reports here. In addition, our staff of reporters and correspondents file original stories each day, which you can find on our home page.

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.