blackascoal
The Force is With Me
FORBES: Why The Republicans Don't Have An Obamacare Replacement Plan
Do you think it is a bit strange that after 7 years, Republicans in Congress still don’t have a replacement plan for Obamacare? Or that they now tell us that developing one will take 3 or 4 more years. And of course, once they have a plan it will take state governments and insurance companies two or three more years to phase it in. So, we are looking at a decade’s delay. That’s if we are lucky.
Suppose the tables were turned. If Obamacare were a Republican reform and Democrats controlled Congress, how long would it take the Democrats to come up with a better plan? They’d do it in a heartbeat. They would do it by doing what Democrats are traditionally good at: putting ideology aside and finding solutions that make all the major stakeholders better off.
Why can’t Republicans do that? Because they don’t know how to put ideology aside and they are unable to honestly communicate with their base on what Obamacare reform really means. The result is a series of Republican plans with elements that almost all Republicans have already said they won’t vote for.
Here are three huge mistakes that make most Republican reform plans politically impossible.
1. Turning 23 million people into anti-Republican voters.
2. Imposing a Republican Cadillac plan tax on blue collar workers.
3. Shifting burdens from the wealthy and the special interests to the middle class.
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One way to think about Obamacare is to see it as a giant exercise in burden sharing. Whether you think it was fair or not, everybody had to give up something. That’s not true of the Republican proposals, which are overly friendly to K Street and the top 1 percent and decidedly unfriendly to the most vulnerable in our society.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoo...an-obamacare-replacement-plan/2/#4776c696accc
Go ahead and repeal it. Democrats are daring you to.
Do you think it is a bit strange that after 7 years, Republicans in Congress still don’t have a replacement plan for Obamacare? Or that they now tell us that developing one will take 3 or 4 more years. And of course, once they have a plan it will take state governments and insurance companies two or three more years to phase it in. So, we are looking at a decade’s delay. That’s if we are lucky.
Suppose the tables were turned. If Obamacare were a Republican reform and Democrats controlled Congress, how long would it take the Democrats to come up with a better plan? They’d do it in a heartbeat. They would do it by doing what Democrats are traditionally good at: putting ideology aside and finding solutions that make all the major stakeholders better off.
Why can’t Republicans do that? Because they don’t know how to put ideology aside and they are unable to honestly communicate with their base on what Obamacare reform really means. The result is a series of Republican plans with elements that almost all Republicans have already said they won’t vote for.
Here are three huge mistakes that make most Republican reform plans politically impossible.
1. Turning 23 million people into anti-Republican voters.
2. Imposing a Republican Cadillac plan tax on blue collar workers.
3. Shifting burdens from the wealthy and the special interests to the middle class.
---
One way to think about Obamacare is to see it as a giant exercise in burden sharing. Whether you think it was fair or not, everybody had to give up something. That’s not true of the Republican proposals, which are overly friendly to K Street and the top 1 percent and decidedly unfriendly to the most vulnerable in our society.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoo...an-obamacare-replacement-plan/2/#4776c696accc
Go ahead and repeal it. Democrats are daring you to.