The American Spectator

AmSpecBlog

Rep. Price on Health Care

By Joseph Lawler on 10.7.09 @ 11:17AM

Rep. Tom Price of Georgia denounced the Democrats' health care reform plans in stark terms this morning at an American Spectator and Americans for Tax Reform press breakfast. Price said that the policies in the current HR3200 plan "violate any principle of good health care that you could think of."

"The die for this vote [on health care] was cast in November," Price noted. "We don't have the votes" to block Democratic legislation, he confessed, adding that he expected that the left would be able to implement harmful policies before the Republicans would be able to regain power in congress. "We may have some very dangerous waters ahead."

With the Democrats poised to overhaul the health care system with a plan that Price thinks will include a public option, the liberal movement would seem to be ascendant. But the tea parties and grassroots opposition to the Democratic idea of health care reform, Price argued, would in fact shortly benefit the Republican Party. "The angst, anger, concern, and fear...are for real," Price observed, before predicting that, because of that grassroots movement, the 2010 elections will be a "remarkable, resounding" victory for the GOP. Price also completely discounted the administration's credibility on health care and among the grassroots, saying that the photo-op that President Obama had with a group of doctors earlier this week was "clearly staged" and not representative of larger groups of practicing doctors.