At WaPo's Plum Line blog, Jonathon Bernstein wants to know when the Republicans will cough up the "replace" part of "repeal and replace."
Exactly three months ago today, House Republicans promised that they would follow up on their vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act by offering their own solutions to replace it. In a USA Today Op ed on January 20th, they promised to hold hearings, draft legislation, and promote specific remedies to the health care problems they agreed need to be addressed.
We’re still waiting....
Granted, the House Republican budget doesn’t ignore health care. It would make dramatic changes to Medicare in the long-term (while flip-flopping on health reform’s Medicare Advantage cuts that Republicans campaigned on last year). But that does nothing at all to fulfill the specific GOP pledges of “prioritizing affordability, improving transparency, and creating a true, functioning marketplace for health insurance.” Nor does it do anything about pre-existing conditions or “promoting healthier lifestyles.”
And yet Republicans promised to come up with specific ideas to do all these things as part of their vow to repeal and replace. That’s what they ran on in 2010 — not on slashing Medicaid and turning Medicare into a voucher program.
It doesn't seem too likely we're going to see any more out of the Republicans on this than what we've got in their budget. Their solution to reforming healthcare is to shove the people who can't afford to be covered in the private market out of it to make do. Or to just die. Rep. Alan Grayson took a lot of heat for this, but he was absolutely right.
It's a very simple plan. Here it is. The Republican health care plan for America: Don't get sick. That's right, don't get sick. If you have insurance, don't get sick. If you don't have insurance, don't get sick. If you're sick, don't get sick....
If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly. That's right. The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick.