Let's move past Wilson's outburst, Cantor says

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The House Republican Whip said Sunday that the country needs to move on from South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson’s recent “You Lie!” outburst during President Obama’s address to Congress last week.

“Let’s go about the business that we are trying to get done which is to affect real health care reform,” Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

Cantor noted that Wilson’s apology had already been accepted by the president and Wilson has said he would not engage in that type of behavior again.

“We’ve got to look to how we get this health care reform done right – not just get it done. And there are areas that we can agree,” Cantor also said, citing banning the practice of denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, trying to ensure coverage to people who have employer-provided coverage but who lose their jobs, and working on medical malpractice reform.

But Cantor also suggested that President Obama had a ways to go if the White House is to be successful on one of Obama’s top domestic agenda items.

“Underlying the fear that we are seeing out across this country is this sense that somehow we’re going to be replacing government decision-making for that of the individual and their doctor,” the Virginia Republican said, “The president [in his address to Congress], I don’t believe went far enough to allay those fears.”

Cantor said the American people “want to see some guarantees” about preserving the relationship between doctors and patients, about the continued vitality of the private market for coverage so that it is less likely the government will ever be able discriminate in the provision of health care, and about paying for the estimated $1 trillion price tag over 10 years for Obama’s health care reform plan.