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What do you know? John King decided to almost act like a reporter today when trying to get John Boehner to explain what the Republicans' alternative the Democratic House health care bill was. King held up the two page summary which is what the Republicans have available now on their web site. Boehner said they have eight or nine ideas which they are going to combine and send to the CBO to have scored and present on the House floor for debate.

What the GOP currently has posted on their web site is vague at best, but John Boehner made sure everyone understood one thing it would not do; attempt to cover the 46 million Americans who do not have health insurance. If the Republicans are serious about offering an alternative bill to what the Democrats have proposed, why didn't they put it together months ago? Will they have it posted on line for a few weeks so everyone can read it once it's done? Of course John King didn't ask him for any of those questions for a follow up.

KING: Let's move on to health care and I know you brought something with you, and it's more than 1,900 pages, and that is the House Democratic health care bill. Before we get to that, I want to hold up something else. This is the text of your radio address. It's two pages. Now, this was an effort by the Republican Party to say we have alternatives. It's not a bill, I want to be fair to you, but it lays out a number of things you would like to do in the Republican Party.

What it does not do, and what that does, even though you don't like it, in 1,900 pages, it lays out what they would do. It says how much it would cost. The Congressional Budget Office has said in the end what percentage of people would be covered.

Where is the Republican proposal where you can say to the American people, we'll spend this much over 10 years, it will do this to the deficit, and when we're done, X percent of the American people will have health insurance?

BOEHNER: You can go to healthcare.gop.gov and see our eight or nine ideas about how to make our current health care system work better.

KING: But they're separate pieces of legislation right now...

BOEHNER: There are separate pieces...

KING: But will you have something to stack next to that?

BOEHNER: What I'm hopeful for is to take these eight or nine ideas and put them together in a bill that's being scored right now by the Congressional Budget Office and present it on the House floor during this debate. And I'm hopeful that Speaker Pelosi will allow us to offer an alternative.

But what we do is we try to make the current system work better. We take a step-by-step approach, by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, allowing small businesses and other groups of individuals to group together for the purpose of buying health insurance at lower costs, like big businesses and unions can.

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Rick Sanchez shows some footage of a woman pleading with Tom Coburn to help her at a town hall meeting because her husband has had a traumatic brain injury, and they can't get insurance for him. After Coburn says he'll help through his office that that we "as neighbors" ought to help each other and the idea that the government is here to help is inaccurate. Gotta' love Sanchez's response here.

What's interesting about that is that Sen. Coburn just essentially said the government is not the solution, but then you have to ask yourself. He just told her to come and see him, isn't he the government? By the way after helping her, what will he do about the other 46,999,999 who don't have insurance, and the thousands upon thousands of Americans who say they do have insurance but like her, they're not getting covered? We'll ask those questions.

Exactly.

h/t The Political Carnival

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Sen. Joe Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats but doesn't seem anxious to find a solution for uninsured Americans. "And I'm afraid we've got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy is out of recession. There's no reason we have to do it all now," Lieberman told CNN's John King Sunday.

"I think it's a real mistake to try to jam through the total health insurance reform," Lieberman said. "It's just not good for the system. Frankly, it won't be good for the Obama presidency."

AFSCME has been very busy running ad campaigns targeted at both Republicans and Democrats, encouraging and embarrassing them when it comes to passing real health care reform:

Washington, D.C. — The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO (AFSCME) has launched a new television ad featuring the union’s nurses. The ad highlights the desperate need nurses see for health care reform, as they serve on the front lines of the crisis each day.

The views and statements in AFSCME's new ad are exactly what I've been hearing for years from my friends and family who work in the health care field. Send a link to your representatives in the House and Senate and make sure they see this ad and remind them how urgently we need real health care reform. If you like the ad, contact AFSCME and let them know.