Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)
A handful of Republican chairmen
released a "blueprint" for an Obamacare replacement plan this week, a sketch that hasn't been put into actual legislation that could actually be voted on. One of the Senators who is responsible for the plan
doesn't expect it to go anywhere until 2017.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Thursday that Republicans might not be able to pass an alternative to ObamaCare until 2017. […]
"I don't think so," he said. "I think that there are going to be a lot of ideas not only in Congress but around the think tanks here in Washington and around the country."
That's the line we've been hearing from Republicans for the past five years—there are just so many good ideas to choose from that it's going to take more time, and more time, and more time for them to actually congeal into a comprehensive plan that could eventually be voted on. Burr is admitting that this plan—which is essentially identical to one he released last year—isn't it. Which House Speaker John Boehner
made clear on Thursday, after the release of this plan, by pointing to another not-yet-a-plan supposedly in the works from a number of House committee chairmen.
"Clearly, our three chairmen have an awful lot of work to do to come up with our replacement. But I would expect all of this to be part of the discussion—all of it. Listen, there’s a lot of ideas out there," Boehner said. "The key is going to be to boil those concepts down to what a real replacement would look like."
Just so, so many ideas to choose from! How could they possibly have gone through them all to come up with something in the past five years? Here's the real story: there's plenty of Republicans who don't think anything needs to be done to replace Obamacare if it's repealed or gutted by the Supreme Court. Sen. Lamar Alexander
is one of them, saying that millions people losing their health insurance may or may not be a problem, and "we need to think if there's anything we need to do. Maybe there's not."
The odds are pretty damned good that Republicans will decide that they're fine with not acting, especially if their fondest dream comes true and the Supreme Court guts the law.