The man who would be Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning. Boehner had quite a few things to say, but a particularly interesting exchange was about the new health care reform bill. Boehner is advocating “repeal and replace” of the bill with Republicans’ “common sense” proposals (ones they never bothered with when they were in charge). During the exchange he tried to take credit for the popular parts of the bill, despite the fact that every single Republican voted against the bill (and tried their best to kill it):
Inskeep asked Boehner if he would also repeal some of the more popular and immediate parts of the bill, like allowing kids under the age of 26 to stay on their parents’ health care plans, or ending the insurance company practice of canceling coverage when someone gets sick.
Boehner said: “Both of those ideas, by the way, came from Republicans and are part of the common sense ideas that we ought to have in the law.”
Of course, Boehner has long criticized the Democrats’ plan for not incorporating any Republican ideas, and as recently as February 25 wrote a statement saying: “Democrats’ job-killing health care proposals do not implement a single major GOP reform that would lower costs for families and small businesses.”
Still not convinced? He also wrote: Look “beneath the newly-minted rhetoric and actually look at the text of their bills, it quickly becomes evident that they haven’t actually incorporated any of the major health care reforms Republicans support.”
Republicans are obviously running on the gigantic hypocrite platform. Boehner’s obviously been talking to Mike Castle.