(CNSNews.com) – House Republicans' 219-page alternative to the mammoth Democratic health care bill would shift the focus away from the Democrats’ so-called “public option” (government-controlled insurance) to reforms aimed at minimizing the pool of the uninsured and driving down the cost of private premiums.
 
The Republican bill, unveiled Tuesday, pledges to “take meaningful steps to lower health-care costs and increase access to health insurance coverage (especially for individuals with pre-existing conditions) without raising taxes, cutting Medicare for seniors, adding to the national deficit, intervening in the doctor-patient relationship or instituting a government takeover of health care.”
 
Unlike the 1,990-page bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled Monday, the more modest GOP plan neither requires employers to provide insurance for their employees nor requires all Americans to buy health insurance.
 
“We now have a choice: we can come together to implement smart, fiscally responsible reforms to improve Americans’ health care or we can recklessly pursue this government takeover that creates far more problems than it solves,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said from his office Wednesday.
 
The Republican plan, which Boehner calls the Common Sense Health Care Reform and Affordability Act, would allocate $15 billion for states to build Universal Access Programs -- high-risk pools “to guarantee access … for those with pre-existing conditions.” It also would reform medical malpractice law by capping non-economic jury awards at $250,000; open up competition among insurers across state lines; eliminate lifetime or annual spending caps now used by insurers and allow dependents to stay on their family coverage plans until at least age 25.
 
“Enough is enough,” Boehner said. “Breaking the bank and taking away the freedoms Americans cherish is not the answer to the challenges we face”
 
Democrats were quick to return fire, however.
 
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the bill “does little to provide security and stability to all Americans, doesn't provide insurance availability for all Americans, does little to expand access to coverage. Ours is vastly superior and we think the American public will think that.”
 
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the plan.
 
“We've tried (post-partisanship) with health care only to have, I think in the last 24 hours, Republicans finally decide to come up with their alternative ideas for health-care reform – health-care reform ideas, I might mention, that by all reports don't include banning insurance companies from discriminating against sick people,” Gibbs said Wednesday.
 
“But the president is going to continue to try to work with Republicans that seek to and want to work -- seek to work with him and want to work for reform and to address the issues that are important in people's lives,” Gibbs said. 

Boehner, however, countered by saying that Republicans had been working on health care all along.
 
“We first released our health care plan in June, and over the last six months, we have introduced at least eight bills that, taken together, would implement this blueprint,” he said.
 
He even chided the Democrats, dismissing the White House pledge to work with Republicans and challenged Speaker Pelosi to allow debate on his amendment.
 
“Only Republicans have offered solutions to lower health care costs and make it easier to obtain quality, affordable coverage without imposing a massive burden on the American people,” Boehner said.
 
Dani Doane, director of congressional relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com that whether the Republican amendment gets a fair hearing depends on whether it could help Democrats.
 
“What (Boehner’s) doing, which is smart, is to try to basically guilt them into doing it, but it’s just the political consideration of the impact of that that will determine whether or not it comes up.”
 
Doane said that the internal machinations of Congress come into play.
 
The House Rules Committee decides the “structure of the debate” on each bill, and Democratic Speaker Pelosi controls the committee -- it is up to her to direct the committee on whether to declare the Republican proposal “in order.”
 
“(Democrats) have a lot of members,” Doane said. “The two questions they have to ask themselves are, ‘Will it pass?’-- if so, (then it’s a) ‘big problem, don’t let it come up’ -- and the second one is, ‘Will they be hurting or helping their members by allowing them to vote on it?’”
 
Doane said its possible Pelosi may allow the amendment to come up for consideration: “(The Democrats) can’t really bash the (Republicans) for not having a bill when they do not allow a vote on it.”
 
The House Rules Committee is next scheduled to meet on the health-care debate at 2:00 p.m. EST on Friday, Nov. 6.
 
House Democrats, meanwhile, have recently begun to suggest their version of health-care reform may not be passed in 2009, and instead may have to wait for further debate in January.