Price: Obama not open to GOP ideas

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) accused President Obama of lying when he said he was open to Republican proposals to improve the healthcare law.

He told Fox News on Monday that despite the president’s repeated solicitation of Republican ideas to improve his signature healthcare law, Price’s calls to the White House have been ignored.

“We’ve actually called him. We’ve contacted the White House repeatedly,” Price told Fox News. “Silence. It’s crickets.”

“The American people know he’s not telling the truth,” he said.

The Georgia lawmaker argued that by implementing tort reforms and allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines, costs could be driven down.

“The fact of the matter is, they don’t want to talk about the quality of healthcare, accessibility to healthcare, affordability of healthcare,” he said. “What they want is the government to control healthcare.”

{mosads}The president has said in recent weeks that he’s open to Republican proposals to improve ObamaCare. But the House bill championed by Price would repeal the president’s signature healthcare law, something the president has insisted will not happen during his time in office.

“Look, I’ve always said I will work with anybody to implement and improve this law effectively,” Obama said earlier this month. “If you’ve got good ideas, bring them to me. Let’s go. But we’re not repealing it as long as I’m President, and I want everybody to be clear about that.”

Obama also accused Republican opponents of failing to offer an alternative.

“Despite all the millions of people who are benefitting from it, you still think this law is a bad idea, then you’ve got to tell us specifically what you’d do differently to cut costs, cover more people, make insurance more secure,” Obama said. “You can’t just say that the system was working with 41 million people without health insurance.”