Promises, promises.
After four years of talk, and a few
pretend efforts, word from the Republican House is that Majority Leader Eric Cantor
is in charge of coming up with some kind of health care plan to replace Obamacare. Because repealing Obamacare is still the Republican's number one obsession.
And after four years of tort reform and insurance sales across state lines being among the very few ideas the GOP has put forward, it's all different now, they say.
Cantor intends to move a repeal-and-replace bill before the midterm elections in November, according to a source familiar with the situation. He broached the issue at the House GOP retreat in Cambridge, Md., late last week. [...]
Cantor intends to gather committee chairmen and key GOP lawmakers to cull through the dozens of Republican healthcare alternatives introduced to date.
“We have an embarrassment of riches. There’s so many great ideas that are out there that I think what you will see is coalescing around these larger themes of empowering patients. In terms of who’s authoring which bills, that’s a leader [Cantor] question,” Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) told The Hill.
Well, he's got the embarrassment part right. As of now, Cantor seems to be snubbing what has been so far the most complete replacement plan to emerge from Republicans, the
problematic proposal from Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Richard Burr (R-NC). The fact that the senators put that plan forward initially without realizing they were going to hike taxes with it might have something to do with it's so far met with cool reception in the House.
So we're seeing the next baby steps from House Republicans toward some kind of a plan, or anyway the promise that they'll be taking the next baby steps. So far, they've managed to grudgingly accept that Obamacare has changed the landscape, and we can't go back to the way it was before. Whether they can get any further than that remains to be seen. Maybe they can prove two-thirds of American voters wrong. That many "likely and independent voters said they do not think congressional Republicans have a clear plan to handle healthcare reform." Undecided voters are even more realistic about the Republican brain trust—about 75 percent of them say Republicans are floundering.
We're all waiting with bated breath, Mr. Cantor, for you to prove us wrong.