Eric Cantor on Morning Joe again bowing to Rush Limbaugh after he said the GOP needs to go on a "teaching tour".
Scarborough: So let’s start with Rush Limbaugh, who seems to be mocking the idea of a listening tour. What do you say to Rush?
Cantor: You know, Joe, really, this.. this is not a listening tour. You know, think about what we saw a couple weeks ago on the tea parties. The American people are very frustrated that they really see a government in Washington that doesn’t hear them, that doesn’t respond to their needs and, frankly, are upset at a government that doesn’t work.
What the National Council for a New America is, is an opportunity for us to go out across this country to talk about our conservative principles and to appeal to as many elements in our society as we can and to really talk to them as a higher level and say, look, there are some transcendental goals that we’re all about in this country, and they can best be achieved through conservative principles of freedom and opportunity.
That’s what this movement is really about.
He also manages to talk in circles and not answer Mike Barnicle's question when asked just what the GOP's plans are for health care.
Barnicle: You just raised the issue of health care. We live in the only civilized nation in the world, where if unfortunately if your child gets sick with a really terrible illness, you might find yourself in bankruptcy court in order to pay the bills. So, without the pretty language, without using any big words, can you tell me, what's your health plan, what's it going to cost, how are you going to get it done, how can you work with the Democrats in concocting, coming up with a health plan that works for everyone?
Cantor: First of all, let me just go in here and address the assumption here in the discussion. We also have a health care system that, in reality, if you are sick anywhere in this world and you can afford it, you can come here for your care because we do have access to the best care, but you're right, there are too many people who don't have access to that care, so what we need to do is to be able to address -- number one -- the coverage and access to insurance, and number two, to be able to demonstrate that we can bring down cost.
Now this notion that we are somehow going to allow the government to take over providing the care because that's going to address the cost factor, is just a false start. You can't assume that this place in Washington is going to do things efficiently. What we do know is that we need to promote the ability for people to -- number one -- if they lose their job, they don't necessarily lose their health care -- number two -- if they are sick and they have a pre-existing condition, we must allow for them to access affordable coverage, because that's a huge issue right now, how people can access coverage when they are sick, and that has to do with expanding the risk pools, giving people the ability to access much more affordable coverage. Right now, we are so tied to a third-party payer system that, you know, people are at a whim cut off from access to care. so we've got to go back to centering our focus on patient/doctor relationships.
Go back to focusing your on patient/doctor relationships? That's all I've heard from these people for the last eight years. No new ideas and more of the same. As TPM noted even Joe Scarborough didn't think much of his appearance. Later in the show he said Cantor and the GOP need to come up with an alternative or stay off the stage. Ouch.
