I've read the Republican Health Care bills

That's right, your favorite little hippy has read the bicameral 130-page “Patients Choice Act of 2009," Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) “Health Care Freedom Plan,” And Rep. Tom Price's (R-Ga.) “Empowering Patients First Act,” a 130-page plan, HR 3400.

Some of you may be asking, why on Earth would you do that? Well, I've been debating politics with my elders the past couple of days. And the majority of the elders in my family are Republicans. I mentioned that I hadn't heard about any legislation from the Republicans on the whole Health Care debate My father promptly informed me that the Liberal media have studiously avoided reporting on them, thus giving cover for Obama to make the claim that the Republicans had offered no alternative. He sent me a link that had names for three of the bills, I searched the Government Printing Office's website and found the actual bills the congress-people are working with. Since I'm on extended maternity leave/unemployment and really lacking in cerebral stimulation right now, I actually read the bills. :-D

I thought to myself, self, perhaps there are other people who are curious about what's in those bills. Maybe they saw the republicans waving them during Obama's address, and wonder what they say.

None of them, in my opinion, address the root issues the system faces, some of them have sections detailing that abortions can't be had with gov't money. I was tired of hearing the republicans rant against abortion by the end of Bush's first term, I'm certainly in no mood to listen to it now that the dem's have control. :-P Here's my take on the three most popular GOP bills, put forward as alternatives to the Dem's reform legislation.

I read Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) “Health Care Freedom Plan", and all it entailed was a tax credit up to 5000$ per family for eligible health insurance spending, and a section trying to fix the liability problems. I think it was trying to limit the amounts people could sue for, I kinda got bogged down in the legalese. While fixing the liability issues facing doctors is certainly important, and I wish the dem's would do something about that issue, the main section of the plan, the tax credit, does very little to help those American's who don't have health insurance. It also doesn't seem like it helps American's, it just seems to shunt money into the hands of big insurance companies, telling them to go about business as usual, with no motivations for reducing costs or increasing efficiency.

“Patients Choice Act of 2009.” appears to be just Medicare legislation. In fact the whole title is Empowering Medicare Patients Choice Act. The purpose: "To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for the establishment of shared decision making standards and requirements and to establish a pilot program for the implementation of shared decision making under the Medicare program."
That hardly seems earth moving to me, but I know the GOP depends on the scared old white people vote, so they have to go with their strengths. :-D Although "shared decision making" does sound an awful lot like Death Panels to me. :-D

“Empowering Patients First Act,” is more of the tax credits and abortion limitations. Nothing to help fix the rising health care costs and decreasing satisfaction that excludes so many Americans from health care.

These don't seem like anything I'd waste time talking about in the middle of a debate on health care reform, and I'm not even a Dem. They seem like bandaids, salves that pretend to help Americans but in reality just send more tax payer dollars to big insurers. Although, that one section dealing with the liability issue, that is worthwhile in my mind. That's an actual problem forcing lots of dr's out of practice because they can't afford malpractice insurance. I hope that bit of legislation eventually sees the light of day, but who knows.

Hopefully this sheds some light on the under-reported GOP bills.