With the ink from President Obama's signature on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) barely dry, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in March 2010 declared, "I think the slogan will be 'repeal and replace', 'repeal and replace," adding, "No one that I know in the Republican conference in the Senate believes that no action is appropriate." But when it comes to that GOP replacement for Obamacare, no action is precisely what Congressional Republicans have delivered. More than three years after the passage of the ACA, some Republicans are finally admitting that "repeal and replace" was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Speaking to the Republican National Committee's summer meeting in Boston, failed GOP presidential candidate turned CNN Crossfire host Newt Gingrich accused his party of having "zero" alternatives to President Obama's health care reform law:
"I will bet you, for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks when your members of Congress are home, and you look them in the eye and you say, 'What is your positive replacement for Obamacare?' They will have zero answer." "We are caught up right now in a culture, and you see it every single day, where as long as we are negative and as long as we are vicious and as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don't have to learn anything...We have to do the homework."
"We are caught up right now in a culture, and you see it every single day, where as long as we are negative and as long as we are vicious and as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don't have to learn anything...We have to do the homework."
Though it wouldn't be the first Obamacare repeal-and-replace proposal floated by individual GOP lawmakers in either chamber of Congress, the RSC bill is one that could at least gain traction on the House floor, given the conservative group's size and influence. It would, however, have to pass muster with House Republican leaders, who have not yet been formally acquainted with the legislative text, according to Scalise. It would also likely need the blessing of outside advocacy groups such as Heritage Action for America and the Club for Growth, which could make or break the bill's chances of passage.
It would, however, have to pass muster with House Republican leaders, who have not yet been formally acquainted with the legislative text, according to Scalise. It would also likely need the blessing of outside advocacy groups such as Heritage Action for America and the Club for Growth, which could make or break the bill's chances of passage.
After all, even if House Republicans somehow managed to agree to birth a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, the proposal would be dead on arrival in the Senate. Its failure might have less to do with Democratic opposition as Republican disinterest. Three months before the Supreme Court gave its blessing to Obamacare, McConnell admitted as much:
If the court keeps the law and McConnell becomes Senate majority leader, he vows that "the first item up would be to try to repeal Obamacare." But he doesn't favor comprehensive legislation to replace it. "We would want to more modestly approach this with more incremental fixes," he told me. "Not a massive Republican alternative."
But he doesn't favor comprehensive legislation to replace it. "We would want to more modestly approach this with more incremental fixes," he told me. "Not a massive Republican alternative."
"Conservatives cannot allow themselves to be browbeaten for failing to provide the same coverage numbers as Obamacare."
The Republicans say they have their own mechanisms for expanding insurance coverage. On the official website for congressional Republicans, party leaders propose such measures as allowing the purchase of coverage across state lines and creating special insurance plans for people with pre-existing conditions. But studies have repeatedly shown that proposals like these would, at best, bring coverage to just a few million Americans. So if the Republicans succeed in taking the recently enacted reforms off the books, that means they are taking insurance away from a whole lot of people.
Such scrutiny proved embarrassing for House Republicans in 2009, when they proposed a detailed alternative to the healthcare legislation that Democrats were developing at the time. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded the GOP proposal would have left more than 50 million Americans without health insurance and reduced costs for healthy people while raising them for the sick. Similar study of the House Republicans' 2011 budget plan indicated that a proposal to make Medicare beneficiaries shop for commercial insurance with a government voucher would leave seniors paying thousands of dollars more for their healthcare.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded the GOP proposal would have left more than 50 million Americans without health insurance and reduced costs for healthy people while raising them for the sick.
Similar study of the House Republicans' 2011 budget plan indicated that a proposal to make Medicare beneficiaries shop for commercial insurance with a government voucher would leave seniors paying thousands of dollars more for their healthcare.
