Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) is back, harassing House leadership to push his Republican Study Committee's "plan" to repeal and replace Obamacare. Remember, the RSC is the group responsible for
coming up with a budget that's even more extreme than Paul Ryan's. Scalise is continuing his primary role as thorn in the side of House leadership, is clamoring for what could be a
politically disastrous vote.
Scalise (R-La.) will push for a House vote on an alternative health care plan crafted by the GOP Conference’s more hard-line members during a closed-door meeting of the Republican Study Committee on Thursday.
“The American people can’t afford to wait any longer for Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare,” Scalise said. “The time is now to bring an Obamacare replacement bill to the House floor that lowers costs and puts patients back in charge of their health care decisions.”
The plan does the usual Republican stuff, and is not healthcare reform. It's a hodgepodge of Republican talking points on health care smushed together—buying across state lines, tort reform, health savings accounts, tax deductible premiums, and stealing from Obamacare the requirement that insurance companies take all comers, regardless of preexisting conditions. And it wouldn't work. Health insurance companies will not sell insurance to people with preexisting conditions out of the goodness of their hearts. The only way that requirement works is with the promise to insurance companies that everybody has to sign up and pay premiums—the individual mandate. It doesn't do anything to make insurance affordable for the 85 percent of people who received subsidies in the exchanges under Obamacare.
But it is a headache for House Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor, who've got proposals from all of the chairs of committees that have jurisdiction on health care. They also can't seem to decide between "fix" and "repeal" now that Obamacare keeps scoring success after success and the public has soured on scrapping the law and the tea party crazies are still hell-bent on doing just that. On top of all that, to have to come up with some kind of replacement plan before November that can pass muster. In other words, the House Republican caucus is as chaotic as ever, and Boehner as hapless in dealing with it as ever.
