This story reeks of "I'm on deadline, I don't feel like working that hard so I'll just expand this handy list of Republican bullet points and then call a few Democrats for 'balance.'" But then, maybe it's just me:

WASHINGTON — When Republicans take President Obama up on his invitation to hash out their differences over health care this month, they will carry with them a fairly well-developed set of ideas intended to make health insurance more widely available and affordable, by emphasizing tax incentives and state innovations, with no new federal mandates and only a modest expansion of the federal safety net.

Umm, excuse me, Mr. Reporter? What do you mean by "fairly well-developed"? And why are you just taking their word for it that their ideas will make health insurance more affordable? Did you, you know, ask any experts?

It is not clear that Republicans and the White House are willing to negotiate seriously with each other, and Mr. Obama has rejected Republican demands that he start from scratch in developing health care legislation.

But Congressional Republicans have laid out principles and alternatives that provide a road map to what a Republican health care bill would look like if they had the power to decide the outcome.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were writing a press release!

[...] The Republicans rely more on the market and less on government.

Ha ha ha! Oh, I get it now: It's a parody of a press release, like Stephen Colbert!

All kidding aside, is this really journalism? Not by any stretch of the imagination. There's no new information, there's only the Republican insistence on their far-fetched version of reality - which we could just as easily get from Fox News. New York Times, maybe you should put some actual work into these stories if you plan to charge us for them.