Republicans aren't being told by leadership to contain their glee tomorrow, if the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act. But they are being told to to spin the fact that they don't have a plan at all for dealing with the nation's health care crisis into something properly Republican.
That's according to the talking points currently circulating in the Senate Republican caucus, obtained by POLITICO.
“Republicans will not repeat Democrats’ mistakes,” the document says. “We won’t rush to pass a massive bill the American people don’t support.” [...]
The talking points appear to mirror the arguments that will be made by House Speaker John Boehner and Mitt Romney, officials say.[...]
By deciding against offering a detailed legislative proposal, Republicans can avoid making the difficult tradeoffs required in developing a major health care plan. Instead, they can rely on a series of well-worn talking points aimed at uniting their party and taking what they believe are their best arguments to voters this fall.
And that means more of the same for the nation's health care crisis, unless of course Republicans take the Senate and White House in November. Then we'd get a much worse health care crisis because they'd eviscerate Medicare and Medicaid, throwing far more people to the private insurance wolves.
Mitt Romney and Republicans in the Senate and the House have made it now abundantly clear that the only thing they intend to do on health care reform, depending on the full extent of the SCOTUS ruling, is repeal everything left standing of the ACA. They have no intention to work on the "replace" part of their 2010 campaign promises.
As Greg Sargent points out, this means they'll abandon all talk of preserving the popular parts of the ACA (which, incidentally, provide coverage to millions who wouldn't otherwise have it and make prescriptions affordable for seniors). Just like Freedom Works has told them to.
"Let 'em die." That's the Republican rallying cry.