Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), who has already declared his opposition to the Senate health care bill in its current form, vocally aired his criticisms of the bill this afternoon — and this was before a scheduled meeting with President Obama.
“There’s a difference between compromise and surrender, right? And this is a complete surrender of all the things that people thought were important to health care reform,” Lynch told reporters. When asked what might cause him to vote for the bill, Lynch said: “There’s one thing. If they put reform back in the health reform bill, that would change my position.”
“We’re paying the ransom, but at the end of the day, the insurance companies still hold the hostages, even after this is all done,” Lynch added. “This is not meaningful reform.”
Lynch shied away from criticizing the grand health care reform package — that is, the Senate bill plus a reconciliation bill — but said he has significant doubts about whether the Senate would be able to push a reconciliation bill through successfully.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) fired back at Lynch’s criticisms. “They’re not going to have a better reform if this goes down. They’re not going to have reform at all if this goes down,” said Waxman, who also added: “In fact we’re also going to show him how well the state of Massachusetts does with all the breaks that they’re going to get. They have a system to cover people and a lot of federal dollars are going to flow into that system.
Reporting by Brian Beutler.
