Republican ACA-alternative is 25 years old... and was never intended to be actually implemented.

[DetlefK]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/5/1639313/-GOP-Obamacare-replacement-is-a-25-year-old-straw-man#read-more

For a generation, the GOP has never offered a serious plan to provide universal health care coverage for the American people. Instead, Republicans have only put up straw men as part of their scorched-earth campaign to prevent Democrats from succeeding in doing so.

...

In his infamous Dec. 3, 1993 memo titled "Defeating President Clinton's Health Care Proposal," Kristol warned Republicans that in their path back to power "the first step in that process must be the unqualified political defeat of the Clinton health care proposal":

Its passage in the short run will do nothing to hurt (and everything to help) Democratic electoral prospects in 1996. But the long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse--much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependence for 'security' on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government.

...

A month later, Kristol detailed "How to Oppose the Health Plan—and Why" with a set of bullet points that by now should look very familiar:

- Reform insurance markets to make health insurance stable and portable
- Limit pre-existing-condition restrictions under employer health plans
- Eliminate barriers to small business insurance pools
- Lower insurance premiums by making them tax-deductible
- Permit the establishment of medical savings accounts
- Reduce costs through malpractice reform
- Simplify health care paperwork through administrative reforms
- Reduce Medicaid and Medicare expenses by lifting the regulatory burden on states
- Provide health insurance tax credits or vouchers to low-income families

...

By the 1994 midterm elections, HillaryCare was dead and with it the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. For Republicans, among the lessons of ’94 was this iron rule. GOP opposition to Democratic health care reform must be total. And key to successful Republican non-cooperation was a permanent placeholder designed not to enable “insurance for everybody” but to stop Democrats from doing so.

...

But as the Times also explained, “Most elements of the administration's latest package are not new.” As a look back at the Bush White House health care fact sheet reveals, many of the bullet points can trace their paternity back to Bill Kristol: ... Republican nominee John McCain largely regurgitated the Bush plan. ... Ditto for the 2012 version of RomneyCare.

...

Within days of Obama’s election in November 2008, conservatives like Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute and founder of the “Anti-Universal Coverage Club,” warned, “Blocking Obama's health plan is key to GOP's survival.” He wasn’t alone in fretting that “if Democrats take the White House and pass a big-government healthcare plan, that's it.”

...

Asked in 2009 by Andrea Mitchell why “you and other Republicans came up with counteroffers to the Clinton White House and the individual mandate was perfectly acceptable to Republicans back then,” Senator Hatch gave the game away. “Well, it really wasn't. We were fighting Hillarycare at that time.” As for why he was waging a “holy war” to stop Obamacare, Hatch told CBN:

“If they get there, of course, you're going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody's going to say, ‘All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party.’"




----------

The republican Obamacare-replacement is nothing more than a talking-point because the underlying ideas were never meant to be more than talking-points. They have never seriously pondered what an actual healthcare-reform should be like because all they ever wanted was preventing the Democrats from scoring a political victory by passing an actual healthcare-reform.

[Vinca]

1. Since Obamacare was essentially the GOP plan against Hillarycare, the only way they could

possibly have a more acceptable plan for the masses would be to enact single-payer. If the dim bulbs who voted for them suddenly realize their new plans have a huge deductible and cover nothing there will be hell to pay on the right. I will be surprised if they do away with Obamacare.

[enid602]

2. Nixon

'Obamacare' was essentially first proposed by Richard Nixon in 1972. Ironically, Ted Kennedy led the charge against it, hoping we could hold out for something better.