President Obama's health care reform law, at least one former GOP leader is urging them to drop the charade and build on the legislation instead.
Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who caused a stir during the construction of health care reform when he said he'd vote for the bill, said it was important to consider the bill the "law of the land" and move on from there.
The comments, and rhetorical questions, came during a press conference hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), announcing a bipartisan framework for addressing reforms to the current law. And in the context of how his fellow Republican lawmakers have demonized the legislation, Frist seemed to be reading off an entirely different script. At one point, he insisted that the bill was "beautiful on paper" and that Republicans should "love" the fact it adopts a "federalism" approach to health care.
That said, his prescriptions for changing the bill were decidedly conservative in mindset. Warning that states simply didn't have the funds to implement the law (in particular, to set up exchanges and reinvent an antiquated delivery system), he predicted that there would be "public private partnerships in ways that were never envisioned."
