Brad Shannon:
The Politics Blog

Brad Shannon maintains this blog. He is political editor at The Olympian and can be reached at 360-753-1688 or bshannon@theolympian.com.

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Castillo praises Baird's 'no' vote on health reform but slams him, too

• Published November 06, 2009

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U.S. Rep. Brian Baird's most active GOP opponent in the 2010 race, David Castillo, has called off his press conference for Saturday morning. Castillo planned to slam Baird and urge his no vote on the health-care reform bill, H.R. 3962. But Baird has set off fireworks with his own party by saying he won't vote for the bill until he sees cost figures.

Castillo put out this statement about the development:

While I am pleased that Brian is choosing to do the right thing for the voters of the 3rd District, and all Americans, I am still deeply concerned about his reasoning and lack of vision and leadership in this national debate. Even if his concerns with this bill are addressed, the legislation will still do nothing to control the soaring cost of health care in this country. The Congressman's 'no' vote is not because he opposes the public option or a move toward Universal, government-run health care. His statement is dangerously silent on this issue and his past positions have been favorable toward such a move. In addition, he does not oppose the tax on insurance premiums for those of us who already have insurance coverage. Instead, he is only concerned that there are no ‘reliable estimates' on how high this premium penalty will be. In this economy, any increase - whether you want to call it a tax, fee or premium increase - is unacceptable and detrimental to our families. Mr. Baird is clearly not supporting free-market solutions to address health care reform. Which means he is willing to support Speaker Pelosi's bill in some form. His actions right now are purely political and doing nothing more than putting off his support of this legislation until - as he says himself - "the House and Senate together produce one bill." To put it in football terms, the Congressman just punted.

To be fair, Castillo's party has not done any better when it had power. Castillo has talked about free market proposals, which his party relied upon in the 1990s as the number of uninsured was growing, and he has not shown how those plans would actually lead to coverage for millions of uninsured people that the House Democratic plan now is said to cover.

But such is the advantage of being in the party that's out of power. It's Democrats' job to produce a plan that works and that they can defend.