MEMO: Questions For The Republican Debate
During tonight’s debate the American people will see the Republican candidates firsthand and will get a glimpse at the positions and ideology driving the field. Over the last few months, as they have scrambled further and further to the right, American Bridge’s research and tracking has documented the candidates adopting positions that are: hypocritical (Romney and taxes), evasive (Huntsman and Libya) and just downright out of the mainstream (Bachmann and contraceptives). Yet tonight, as the candidates face a national audience, and not solely a fawning crowd of TEA party activists, the nation will see if they will maintain their extreme positions as the candidates attempt to answer the following questions...
VIDEO: Bachmann Says Health Insurers Shouldn't Be Required To Pay For Birth Control
Transcript after the jump.
Roll Call: Heather Wilson Running to the Right in N.M.
On July 5, 2011, Roll Call reported:
Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) sounds like a tea partyer. The former Congresswoman, who ran on her national security expertise and independent voting record to win five full terms representing Albuquerque, is now boasting that she has signed a conservative “cut, cap and balance” pledge, says she wouldn’t increase the debt ceiling unless a deal includes significant budget cuts and calls the new health care law unconstitutional.
The Hill: FDA slams Republican 'hard science' amendment
On June 6, 2011, The Hill's Healthwatch reported:
A Republican amendment adopted last week by House appropriators could weaken efforts to protect the public from unsafe drugs, tobacco, lead-filled candy and even tainted blood, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday in several documents. The amendment, from Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), would restrict the kind of information regulators use when making their decisions. The amendment cleared the Appropriations Committee last week.
Mitt Romney's Health Care Plan: The Foundation Of Obama's Plan
Club For Growth: Romney’s Health Care Plan And “ObamaCare” Are Similar In Three Significant Ways: Mandate, Health Exchanges And Low-Income Subsidies. According to the Club for Growth, Romney’s health care plan and Obama’s health care law “are similar in at least three significant ways.” Club for Growth wrote, “Both have an individual mandate that requires people to purchase a private good – in this case, health insurance – and levies a financial penalty against those who don’t. Both implement a new government bureaucracy called an “exchange” through which all insurance policies are approved, sold, and heavily regulated. Both have sizeable subsidies for low-income people to purchase the mandated coverage.” [Club for Growth, 2012 Presidential White Paper #5, 6/7/11] National Review Editorial: Romney’s Signature Health Care Legislation Looks Like A Pilot Program For Obamacare. In an editorial for the National Review, contributor Mark Steyn wrote, “Unfortunately for [Romney], his signature legislation in Massachusetts looks awfully like a pilot program for Obamacare. So in recent days, he’s been out yet again defending his record: If I understand him correctly, his argument is that the salient point about Romneycare and Obamacare is not that they’re both disasters, but that one’s local and the other’s national, and that Obama has a one-disaster-fits-all approach to health care whereas Romney believes in letting a thousand disasters bloom. Celebrate diversity!” [National Review, 5/14/11 ]
Josh Mandel On Health Care
Mandel Voted Against $209,035,021 For Medical And Health Programs, Including $10,020,403 For Hospitals. In 2010, Josh Mandel was one of only 18 legislators in both the House and the Senate (out of 129 legislators) to vote against House Bill 462, the capital re-appropriations bill. The bill included $209,035,021 for medical and health programs, including $10,020,403 for hospitals. [H.B. 462, 3/16/10]