Discussion: 12 Times GOP Leaders Have Promised An Obamacare Alternative

Would some enterprising reporter please press the Republicans on what they mean by “patient-centered” - and don’t let them get away with more empty clichés. Letting people with pre-existing conditions get insurance sounds “patient-centered” to me. So does eliminating lifetime caps and limiting annual out-of-pocket expenses. And on and on and on – ACA is very patient-centered, but nobody seems to challenge the Republicans on that (and Democrats haven’t defended ACA sufficiently, either).

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Happens in Utah with the Republican-controlled legislature all the time. It goes like this:

  1. A Democrat sponsors a controversial bill.
  2. Republicans oppose it.
  3. The LDS Church surprises Republicans by saying they have no objections to the bill.
  4. The Republicans kill the bill in committee, then propose a new, Republican-sponsored bill that does the same thing.
  5. High fives all around as Republicans save the day!
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And while the GOP contains to flail about in a vain attempt to find a plan that its members can agree on, Obamcare continues to lower the number of uninsured.

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“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

J Wellington Wimpy

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Republicans don’t have a replacement because every shortcoming of the ACA was to err on the side of being too conservative. It’s a Rube Goldberg contraption of private insurance, which protects too many profits of too many insurers, manufacturers and providers while not providing enough health care to enough people. The only possible improvements to ACA would be to liberalize it, and everything Republicans stand for would make the problems worse.

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GOP plan; take blue ribbon and black wrapping off of healthcare package, remove some goodies, rewrap with white wrapping and red ribbon, charge more for less, shut down government and spend billions to save millions. Awesome!

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“Plan”?..we don’t need some stinkin’ plan!"…“we’re Republicans, we’ll just go with our gut the day Obamacare is repealed”

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The gullibility of Republican voters continues to astound me. How many times can Boehner et al. make empty promises before their constituents realize they’re full of shit? How many Republican voters who are now benefiting from Obamacare will finally make the connection and see a light bulb go on?

I know the answer - not enough.

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That’s because they are so busy writing a budget that will pay off the debt…ha ha ha ha fooled ya!

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I think we can agree to create a new scientific law: The Law of Conservative Republican Stupidity. The hypothesis has been proved over and over again and nobody has any doubt left about it.

Like the proverbial scorpion, they just can’t help themselves…

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Cue the Benny Hill theme…

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They make the promise, they don’t deliver, they get re-elected with larger majorities. Sounds like they are just being rational to continue to not come up with a replacement plan.

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Well, it’s less than 40% of their repeal attempts, but still almost twice their approval rating.

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When push comes to shove all they can come up with is:

  1. liability insurance reform
  2. selling insurance across state lines
    Neither of which would,have any significant effect on improving costs, deductibles, coverage, or access.
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Exactly this. The so-called Overton window, if applied to the ACA, puts it about as conservative as you could possibly go in regards to what it’s attempting to do. There’s next to zero room for which Republicans can work a realistic version of reform that doesn’t go further left. I guarantee that anything the GOP comes up with (if anything) is going to be laughably insufficient and quite possibly completely unworkable. Right now for them it’s mostly coming down to presenting anything as an alternative to fool the rubes and deflect criticism of being devoid of ideas, and certainly not something genuine.

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The Republican plan: Repeal and…BENGHAZI!!!

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Through gerrymandering they’ve created their own voter base. They can tell these guaranteed voters anything or nothing and like the living dead they’ll come with a little stubby pencil in hand and vote for them.

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The Repub’s quandary is that any serious proposal they’ve worked up in a back room ends up looking enough like Obamcare that they can’t take it to their base…the base they’ve trained to despise broad health coverage. So they get to the point where they have to propose limits on pre-existing conditions – that’s popular – but they can’t acknowledge that it necessarily includes a requirement to carry insurance – that’s not popular.

You left off tax credits to buy individual policies, “responsibly” paid for by ending tax breaks on employer-sponsored health plans.