Claiming GOP ‘had 10 years’ to control health care costs
During his health care speech at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, President Obama said this:
We have failed to meet this challenge during periods of prosperity and also during periods of decline. Some people say, well, don’t do it right now because the economy is weak. When the economy was strong, we didn’t do it. We’ve talked about it during Democratic administrations and Republican administrations. I got all my Republican colleagues out there saying, well, no, no, no, we want to focus on things like cost. You had 10 years. What happened? What were you doing?
The Republicans had 10 years? To which decade is the president referring?
The GOP had control of the executive and legislative branches of government for a total of 4 years — during the 108th Congress (2003-2005) and the 109th Congress (2005-2007). Republicans also controlled both branches for a six-month stint in 2001 (from January to June).
In 2007, the Democrats took over.
Perhaps the president meant the time period that Republicans controlled the House, from January 1995 to January 2007 — a 12 year period of time, not 10. Even so, the GOP took over in 1995 in large part because of Bill Clinton’s failed attempt to reform health care. Clinton was president for six of the GOP’s 12-year rule of the House.
The question ought not to be, “What happened? What were you doing?” from the president. With overwhelming majorities in the Senate and the House and a Democrat in the White House, why haven’t they been able to get their bill passed?
What happened? What were they doing?
Sources:
The White House, March 8, 2010
Remarks by the President on Health Insurance Reform
Wikipedia
