The Republicans let Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) give the GOP’s opening statement at today’s health care summit. His opening bid? Democrats should scrap their entire plan and start from scratch. That’s perfectly expected. But he also repeated the Republican line that Democrats are planning to jam “health care reform” through the majority-rules budget reconciliation process.
That’s not true.
Democrats have already passed comprehensive legislation through regular order in both chambers. Two different bills What they’re planning, tentatively, to do now is use reconciliation to make some minor changes to one of those bills.
Though he once himself supported the comprehensive Wyden-Bennett approach to health care, Alexander now says Republicans favor a non-comprehensive approach.
