During the debate over Obamacare’s flaws, liberals have been voraciously spreading this lie: Republicans have no alternative to the Affordable Care Act. And it’s time that the GOP stops letting them get away with their falsehood.
The 2012 election proved to the nation that the GOP has messaging issues, especially in connecting with youth and minorities. The marketing struggles continue to be a concern, as Republican strategists reevaluate and strategize with an eye on the 2014 midterms and the next presidential election.
But in the meantime, liberals are doing their best to drown out Republicans when it comes to healthcare reform — and the GOP is doing little to combat liberal efforts.
The hosts of MSNBC are perhaps the most flagrant offenders in this particular area. Earlier this week, Ed Schultz claimed that President Barack Obama didn’t need to be apologizing for the failures of Obamacare. Instead, he argued that “the apology should be coming from the conservatives” because they had not presented a solution to America’s healthcare woes.
On Thursday night, both the Rev. Al Sharpton and Chris Matthews claimed that the Republicans don’t have any substitute to the ACA.
“They have no plan!” Sharpton proclaimed. “They have no alternative way to service these people that need health insurance.”
“We haven’t heard from one of them yet as to what the Republican plan is,” Matthews said just an hour later. “There’s nothing in their platform, there’s nothing on the Hill. Nowhere can you hear it. Who’s out there advertising the Republican plan on healthcare? There is no such animal.”
Matthews jested that he wanted to spend an entire hour-long episode of his show talking about the GOP healthcare plan. The host said that discussion would be over quickly and he could spend the rest of the show doing what he wants.
The problem is, no one seems to be combatting this liberal rhetoric.
Despite the existence of several GOP alternatives, the only healthcare option that has received any noticeable coverage in the media is Obamacare. This easily could be blamed on the liberal bias of the mainstream media, but that’s a cop-out for the real problem: the GOP once again has a messaging issue.
The Republican Party has become so focused on repealing or redoing Obamacare that they’ve forgotten to highlight their healthcare reform plans. There are the plans put forth by Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.), for starters. And “The American Health Care Reform Act” from the Republican Study Committee.
So why haven’t you heard much about these plans? Good question — and one the GOP needs to answer.
