GOP Admits They Have No Obamacare Alternativei.huffpost.com
GOP Admits They Have No Obamacare Alternative
Made popular 370 days ago in Politics
nymag.com — One of the hard facts about public opinion during the health-care debate was that, while the public quickly soured on health-care reform, it remained quite sweet on the concept of health-care reform. This is why Republican opponents took care to insist at all times they only opposed the particulars of President Obama’s plan, and wanted instead to reform the system their way, with all the popular things and none of the unpopular stuff. Republicans declared they had a “moral imperative” to reform the system, robotically insisting their plan was not merely to repeal health-care reform but “repeal and replace.” As Jonathan Bernstein notes, just last January, Republicans in Congress promised to have their all-gain, no-pain alternative ready and raring to go for the summer so they could move if the Supreme Court overturned Obamacare.
But, in a development that received almost no attention at all, Republicans quietly conceded last week that they aren’t going to replace Obamacare at all.
Insisting they absolutely must replace it was necessary in order to make their totalistic opposition to health-care reform palatable. The political dynamics are such that you can loudly promise to craft an alternative a million times, and then quietly take back that promise in a small article published in The Hill.
Huge majorities of the public support, in the abstract, the idea of universal coverage. But they turn much more negative when presented with specific measures to offset the costs, like taxes or cuts to Medicare. Republicans have been claiming to support the general goal of expanding coverage but simply opposing any specific measure to do so. But conservatives actually oppose the idea of universal health insurance on moral principle. They tend not to concede this straight out, but the belief pops up from time to time.
The central argument against Obamacare was that it cost too much, and, regardless of what the Congressional Budget Office forecast, would doubtless increase the deficit. Paul Ryan has insisted over and over that the cost-control methods put in place by the Affordable Care Act would certainly fail because they entailed bureaucracy. As it happens, health-care costs have slowed dramatically, and there is strongly suggestive evidence that health-care reform has helped drive the slowdown. James Capretta, an adviser to Ryan, wrote a blog post disputing this conclusion. I find his reasoning unpersuasive, but that’s really beside the point. The interesting thing is Capretta’s fallback position, which is that he opposes Obamacare even if it succeeds in controlling health-care costs beyond its most ambitious goals:
... in the unlikely event that we could stop worrying about unaffordable premium increases, federal health spending would still be unaffordable because of the massive rise in enrollment scheduled for Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare’s new premium-subsidy entitlement program. There’s no getting around the fact that the federal budget is overloaded with entitlement promises that must be scaled back even if health spending rises only commensurate with the economy.
Is there no getting around the “fact” that the government cannot cover the 50 million uninsured Americans? It’s not a fact at all. It’s an ideological preference. What Capretta is conceding is that the facts don’t matter to him at all. He doesn’t think government should guarantee health insurance as a right. He’ll oppose any universal coverage plan on affordability gr

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Posted by AUpolls
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If the GOP wants to repeal ObamaCare/RomneyCare shouldn't they also have something to replace it with?
Strong Yes
3.8%
Yes
53%
Strong No
9.4%
No
34%
This is not a scientific survey, click here to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding and voting descrepencies.
User Comments
james2044
Posted 370 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
Their is no indication that the current system needs a replacement.

Their is no indication that the American voters want a replacement.

Becuse the Democrats are power mad fools is no reason for the GOP to be that way.
AUpolls
Posted 370 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@james2044 Having friends who don't have health insurance and would rather stay home sick than go to the hospital is all the reason to have something there in place. Just because you don't care about your fellow Americans doesn't mean everyone has to be as cold.
james2044
Posted 370 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@AUpolls

You can get "Health Care" at public hospitals.
You get health insurance by having a job and buying it.
Medicade is there
Hospitals do much "free" work
NO ONE is without unless they don't want to have it.

Americans do not want more goverment!
AUpolls
Posted 370 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@james2044 So, stop telling states to outlaw gay marriage, requiring more identification in order to vote, get rid of RomneyCare, and trying to control a woman's right to choose. Isn't that more government involvement?
lastbaldeagle
Posted 370 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
Nice parroting of the DNC talking points, but we are and will remain a Capitalist society and not a socialist/communist countryn no matter how bad the liberal/progressive desire to control it!
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