GOP senator promises to ‘turn patients into consumers’

Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, shown in 2017.

Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas told Newsmax that the Republicans have a health care plan. Yeehaw! What is the plan that the GOP’s been marinating for almost two decades?

They want you to know how expensive everything is! As if you didn’t already know.

“We're going to focus on bringing down the cost of health care for everybody,” Marshall said on Monday. “And that starts with our price-tags bill forcing every health care delivery system in America to show patients upfront the cost, turn patients into consumers again, and increase competition.”

Marshall’s “Patients Deserve Price Tags Act,” introduced last summer, is premised on the idea that the core problem in the health care economy is a lack of itemized bills. Marshall’s fix is to make sure Americans can see the prices they can’t afford, then for them to shop around for other options they also can’t afford.

Millions of Americans are facing skyrocketing health care costs, due in no small part to the GOP’s cruel refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies last year. Republicans, including Marshall, also voted to block a Democratic amendment that would have addressed the crisis the GOP created.

After years of attacking the ACA, Republicans like Marshall are trying to rebrand the absence of an actual plan as a bold new approach.