House Speaker Paul Ryan has been rolling out his "Better Way" proposals, his attempt to deflect attention away from Donald Trump and pretend like the Republican party stands for something more than hating people of color and the poor. He's promised the long-awaited Obamacare replacement plan is coming, finally, next week. Kinda. Because it "will not include specific dollar figures on some of its core provisions, and will instead be more of a broad outline, according to lobbyists and aides." Or maybe it's more of a white paper, they say. Steven Benen has a reminder of how long this outline has been in the making.
As we discussed when the Republican “task force” was created early last year, the political world may not fully appreciate just how overdue this GOP health care plan really is. It was on June 17, 2009 that then-Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) made a bold promise. The Missouri Republican, a member of the House Republican leadership at the time, had taken the lead in crafting a GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and he was proud to publicly declare, “I guarantee you we will provide you with a bill.”
The same week, then-Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters that the official Republican version of “Obamacare” was just “weeks away.” We’d all see the striking proof that far-right lawmakers could deliver real solutions better than those rascally Democrats.
It turns out, Blunt’s proclamation was exactly seven years ago tomorrow—and Paul Ryan’s “broad outline” isn’t quite ready yet.
That's missing literally dozens of promises of "soon, very soon" delivery of a plan from Republicans. And now, when Paul Ryan has really taken over and they're really getting serious, it's an outline. Or maybe a white paper. Uh, vision statement? Whatever it is, it's going to be the same ineffectual ideas they've been pushing for six years, ideas that have never gelled into any kind of legislation and ideas that even combined would result in millions becoming uninsured—again.
Leadership! Or what amounts to it in today's GOP.