March 9, 2010 Republican Leadership Conference

March 9, 2010 Republican Leadership Conference

MARCH 10, 2010

Republican Leadership Press Conference
March 10, 2010

Participants:
- Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH)
- Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)
- Conference Chair Mike Pence (R-IN)
- Conference Vice Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
- Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX)


Multimedia:
Audio   

 
Republican Leader John Boehner

Good morning everyone.  We've just finished our weekly meeting of the House Republican Conference.  It's pretty clear Democratic leaders aren't listening to the American people.  They are trying to find every legislative gimmick in order to shove this government takeover of our health care system down the throats of the American people when the American people have made clear that they want no part of this. They're going to ask their colleagues to vote on the Senate-passed bill that includes the $500 billion in health care cuts and close to $500 billion in tax increases, every backroom deal that was cut in the Senate, they're going to ask their Members to vote for this.

I just think that it's time for the American people to make their voices known about how they feel about this health care bill.  My colleagues and I are standing united in opposition to this government takeover of our health care system.  It's not too late to scrap this bill and really zero-down on what the real issue is, and that's the cost of health care in America. There are things that we can do together in a bipartisan way to bring down the cost of health care.

Lastly, I've asked the Chairman of our Conference, Mike Pence, to schedule a meeting of the House Republican Conference to talk about an earmark moratorium that we would put into effect this year.  This issue has been debated over the last four years and two months, since I was in a race for Majority Leader.  And clearly our Members have some strong feelings on this.  But I think it's time for our conference to sit down and have a real adult conversation about whether we're really willing to do what's necessary to come all the way back.

Republican Whip Eric Cantor
 
Good morning. It's clear that if the Senate bill was a bill that was acceptable to the American people, in fact, acceptable to many, many Democrats, we would be having a vote on that today.  But because it's not, as the Leader indicates, the Democrats have chosen to employ the reconciliation process.  This is a process that represents in this scenario a manipulation of the rules, and frankly, a will to circumvent the American people.  Senator John Kyl and I have distributed a memo today laying out the complexities of the reconciliation process, and in fact, the uncertainties surrounding this entire process where the Democrats are trying to conduct a solely partisan vote to ram this bill down the throats of the American people in a way that I think will negatively impact our health care future forever. Thank you.
 
Conference Vice Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers

Last week, when the president was talking about health care reform, he said "every argument has been made, everything there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everyone has said it." So, true enough, Mr. President. And after a year of debate on health care by Congress and by the president, where do the American people stand? CNN's recent polls say "73 percent of Americans want Congress to either ‘start from scratch' on health care reform or ‘stop working on [the bill] completely.'  Only 25% want to pass the Democrats' plan."
 
So, America is rejecting this bill and House Republicans believe that there is a better way. We believe there is a better way than a government takeover of our health care system. A better way than raising taxes, raising premiums, and jeopardizing the quality of health care that every American has enjoyed. And we have advocated for a series of market-based common sense solutions that will actually reduce premiums and increase access to health care. The president and the Speaker are ignoring the will of the people. And the question is, will our colleagues in the House, on the other side of the aisle, stand with the people and listen to the wisdom of Americans all across the country.
 
Rep. Roy Blunt
 
Well, remember the quote that Cathy McMorris Rodgers just gave about how everything had been said and now it was time to vote. Just a few weeks ago, at the State of the Union message, the president actually took some responsibility by saying it was maybe his fault that people just didn't understand this well enough yet. That the 48 speeches, the four dozen speeches, he gave last year weren't clear enough that the American people could understand.
 
I thought at the moment I heard that, "The problem, Mr. President, is the people do understand the direction that you want to go, that the Speaker wants to go, that the leader in the Senate wants to go. And they don't want to go there." Now, today in my home state of Missouri, the president is there giving his 52nd speech since he was elected president on health care. His 52nd speech, in a state where I have been in a majority of the counties in the last year, and those national numbers of two-thirds or better opposed are clearly the numbers in our state.  And the 52nd speech is not going to be any more persuasive than the 51st speech or the 50th speech. People do not want to go there. They understand that we can do some common sense reforms in the health care system. What they don't want to see is you just throw the greatest health care system in the world up in the air and see where it lands four to five years from now when you finally start spending some of the hundreds of billions of dollars that you'd start collecting right away.
 
Rep. Kay Granger            

In my home state of Texas, what people want to do is be put back to work. The unemployment rate is 8.3 percent and they say we've got a bill that's going to cost us jobs, cost us health care and not do what we need to have done. So, they're very much against it. All my letters, all my emails, saying "We don't like the bill. We don't like the process. We certainly don't like the overreach of government and we want to start over." I think that's what we should do.
 
Conference Chair Mike Pence

The American people want health care reform that lowers the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government. But what's being forced through the Congress, as we speak, is a government takeover of health care. It will mandate that every American purchase health insurance, whether they want it or need it or not. It'll impose massive new bureaucracy and taxes on working families, small businesses and family farms and the American people overwhelmingly oppose it. It is Washington at its worst.
 
The reality is that this legislation represents the kind of elitist attitude, the "We know better than you attitude" that the American people are sick and tired of. It is truly astonishing that the Speaker of the House said yesterday, here in Washington, D.C., that we need to "pass the bill so we can find out what's in it." Madam Speaker, the American people know what's in this bill and they don't want it.
 
The reality is that we can come together and pass the kind of incremental, step by step reforms that will lower the cost of health insurance by allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines and that'll lower the cost of health care by passing reasonable limits on medical malpractice cases. We can even deal with the difficult issue of pre-existing conditions by using savings to strengthen state funds. But it all begins with stopping this bill. We implore our colleagues in the House: Listen to the American people, reject this government takeover of health care and we will work with you on behalf of the American people to achieve health care reform that'll meet their desires and reflect their values.