The six health care stories Roy Blunt hopes you don't read today

While Lloyd Smith and the MO GOP were embarrassing themselves to get headlines with a lame-o ethics complaint, here's what the Washington press corps was writing about Roy Blunt's brand new comprehensive health care reform plan slightly-longer but still-vapid talking points memo.

The Hill:

But Blunt couldn't say how the GOP leadership-backed measure would be paid for, in part because they don't know how much it will cost.

ABC's The Note:

House GOP Leaders Outline Health Care Plan – Without Numbers or Details

House Republicans unveiled an outline of their healthcare reform plan at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday.

The broad-stroke plan, given to reporters as a three-and-a-half page summary, lacked details or a cost estimate. 

The Republicans promised those would come later.

Roll Call:

House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn’t know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who heads a GOP health task force, said that when the details are drafted in the coming weeks, they would present a plan that “costs far less than the Democrats’ [plan] and provides better results for the American people.”

Politico:

“I guarantee you we will provide you with a bill that costs less and provides better care for the American people,” said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who is heading up the House GOP’s health care effort.

But while Republican leaders today attacked Democrats for the cost of their plan, they declined to offer any details on how much their own blueprint would cost.

MSNBC's First Read:

According to the Solutions Group press release, the GOP plan "encourages employers to opt-out rather than opt-in rules, which help the 10 million uninsured Americans who are eligible, but not enrolled in, an employer sponsored health insurance plan."

Under these two ideas, 17 million out of the country's current 46 million uninsured would get insurance. However, that still leaves 29 million-plus uninsured that are not specifically mentioned in the plan.

Another area that is not touched upon within the GOP plan is cost. When pressed on the issue by reporters, Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) struck back.

"We are not going to have a bill that is larger than the GDP of most countries,” he said, an apparent reference to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate on the Kennedy plan and other floated numbers -- in the trillions of dollars -- for the potential cost of other Democratic-backed plans.

He then went on to say the numbers for the GOP plan would come after the Democrats are done scoring their own legislation. When pressed harder for a ballpark estimate of the cost of the plan, Camp responded, "We do have ideas about that" before reiterating the GOP's idea of insuring Americans under the age of 25.

Republicans drew criticism back in March after they unveiled a budget with no numbers. A more detailed plan followed later.

And then this poll Gallup, which shows that Republican leaders in Congress enjoy less :

Obama stands out among elected officials on this [health care] issue because he not only enjoys the confidence of his own party members (Democrats), but he receives majority support from independents. The 53% of independents saying they are confident in Obama to recommend the right thing on healthcare contrasts with only 36% of independents confident in congressional Democratic leaders, and 27% confident in congressional Republican leaders.