This weekend, a handful of Senate Republicans
sketched out what they call a "plan" for fixing the mess conservatives might have created by getting the Supreme Court to gut Obamacare. It wasn't much in the way of an actual plan as two vague ideas, one of which was pretty much lifted from Obamacare. Well, now it's House Republicans'—led by their "ideal guy" Paul Ryan—turn to write an op-ed about
their plan, and
darned if it doesn't have some familiar elements.
We would allow parents to keep children on their plan until age 26. We would prohibit insurers from imposing lifetime limits on benefits. We would protect people with existing conditions. And we would guarantee renewability for people already enrolled in a plan.
Second, help people buy coverage. Right now, those who get insurance through their employer get a lot of help from the tax code, while some people who buy insurance on their own, including potentially the millions of Americans the IRS put at risk, get no help at all. So we would offer those in the affected states a tax credit to buy insurance.
Yes, it's Obamacare, but with a big red GOP stamp on it. Yep, that Paul Ryan, he sure is a big thinker. Oh, they throw in the usual suspects of buying insurance across state lines and tort reform and getting rid of the mandate (because they hate the mandate) but the system they are proposing is pretty much Obamacare. Of course, it's not as stable as Obamacare would be because it wouldn't have the mandate—good luck getting insurers to agree to any restrictions when they don't have a guaranteed customer base.
But getting insurers to agree isn't even their first hurdle. More importantly, they have to convince their fellow Republicans that the federal government has a place in health care at all. Good luck with that one.