Wanker Chuck Todd thinks that if President Obama had just said he wanted to adopt some of SoreLosermanMcGrumpy's "comprehensive" health care plan from his failed presidential campaign that the President Obama would have looked much more serious about considering Republican ideas in an effort for bipartisanship.
There are a few good articles out there outlining just what McCain was proposing as "reform" for our health care system and I'm pretty sure they've either all been debunked as not being anything that should be taken seriously as any sort of reform. Or worse yet, even if they're bad ideas, some of them are already incorporated into the Senate's bipartisan health care bill that the Democrats allowed the Republicans to muck up to the delight of Max Baucus and after endless amounts of hearings in both the Senate and the House.
In Chuck Todd's world though, Republicans' bad ideas still just haven't been given enough consideration. I agree with Todd that it might have been a good idea to point out any portions of McCain's proposals that have already been adopted in the bill that made its way through the Congress as a way to rebut him. Calling McCain's plan "comprehensive" and pretending that the Democrats have not already adopted way too many of the Republicans' bad proposals such as those from McCain and others into the health care bill is ridiculous.
The reason most of the public does not understand what's already in the bills that came out of the House and the Senate and how much of those bills are already compromises that incorporate Republican ideas is because people like Chuck Todd are not doing their jobs.
For more here are some of those articles about just what McCain was proposing during his campaign that Chuck Todd thinks the President should have embraced today.
McCain's Health Care Plan: Gut Employer-Based Insurance
McCain's Health Plan Only Works If You Don't Get Sick
McCain’s Health Proposals Under the Microscope, Part II
Update: Transcript below the fold and yes, Chuck Todd did actually say that the Republicans were more prepared than the Democrats for this summit.
TODD: Yes, I don`t -- I don`t think that was sort of a -- but the other thing that was, I think, striking about this exchange and the fact that it was really the only one -- there was one other exchange --
MATTHEWS: Yes.
TODD: -- between the two, is that John McCain had a pretty comprehensive health care plan when he was running for president that was probably closer to where this -- where Obama is.
MATTHEWS: Patients Bill of Rights.
TODD: Yes. There`s a lot of stuff -- and Obama never brought it up. You would assume with John McCain sitting there --
MATTHEWS: Yes.
TODD: -- that they would have, knowing he was coming -- you know, what this goes to, the whole thing, Republicans were 10 -- seem 10 times more prepared for this summit than the Democrats were.
I was surprised the White House never brought up John McCain`s health care proposal and said, you know, hey, Senator McCain had this -- this was his health care proposal. And, in fact, we`ve taken X, Y, and Z from it.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
TODD: It would have been a more obvious way to say to the public you were trying to make this case, that I`m taking Republican ideas.
MATTHEWS: Was there any -- I got the buzz somewhere that the Democrats were told to let the president be the hot hand today.
