Michael Steele admitted on Tuesday night that Republican lawmakers failed to do anything about reforming the health care system when they were in control of Congress and the White House.
Asked by Fox News' Greta Van Susteren why nothing was done when the GOP "owned the House, the Senate, the White House," Steele answered simply:
"I don't have an idea... That's one of the flaws of the past, that we tripped ourselves up . We had a perfect opportunity even when we didn't have control of the House and Senate during the early days of Bush first term to at least put in place our imprimatur on the health care debate But that's the past."
Steele also said that he applauded the administration for "putting this on the table" but that he disagreed with the particulars put forward by the administration.
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The question has become a bit of a theme for Van Susteren - on Monday night, she asked Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn the same question.
Coburn also blamed his own party for not taking the initiative:
"Now, I don't know why the leadership -- I came to the Senate in 2005. I can't account for the five years before that. But the fact is, is they didn't take advantage of any of the opportunities they had to make big changes, and they could have done this and they should have, but they didn't."