Cantor: Obama Using GOP Ideas In Health Care Plan Is 'Political Cover'

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor released a statement today attacking President Obama for including four Republican ideas in his new health care proposal, which will be released tomorrow. Here's Cantor's full statement, as released by his office:

"Tomorrow President Obama will make the latest in a year long series of speeches and statements on his plan to overhaul health care, despite the fact that most Americans prefer an incremental, step-by-step approach that lowers costs for families, workers, and small businesses.

"It's been reported that the White House will no longer use the term 'reconciliation' to describe the partisan process they plan to use to jam through a trillion dollar overhaul of our health care system, which indicates that the President himself understands the danger of changing the rules to willfully undermine the concerns shared by a majority of Americans. Should the President, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid make the partisan decision to use reconciliation for transformational legislation of this size, scope, and cost, they do so against the will of the people.

"I will be listening to hear whether the President will abandon plans to empower Washington bureaucrats over patients to decide what constitutes acceptable coverage, drop the mandates to force individuals to buy more expensive insurance, and stop using budget gimmicks to hide the real price of this legislation, which will end up costing Americans trillions of dollars. I hope that the President removes the job killing tax increases and cuts to Medicare that will take away benefits that seniors currently receive.

"If the President simply adds a couple of Republican solutions to a trillion dollar health care package that the American people don't support, it isn't bipartisanship - it's political cover."