Replace and Repeal Obamacare

Despite the lies told by President Obama and others, Republicans have put forth serious alternatives to Obamacare, and a comprehensive plan to REFORM rather than MANAGE the private health insurance market is on the table.

A Serious GOP Alternative to Obamacare

The Patient CARE Act.

By David Catron – 2.3.14  AmericanSpectator

The most frequently repeated Democrat talking point concerning Republican opposition to Obamacare is the claim that the GOP has offered no alternative. This is nonsense, of course, but it has proved an effective device for suppressing a serious debate about the President’s “signature legislative achievement.” Predictably, Obama offered yet another variation on the theme during his recent State of the Union message: “I don’t expect to convince my Republican friends on the merits of this law.… So again, if you have specific plans to cut costs, cover more people, and increase choice — tell America what you’d do differently.”

Ironically, as the President well knew when he read those words from his teleprompter, the latest of several Republican alternatives to Obamacare had been announced just a day earlier. This plan, the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act (or CARE Act), has been put forward by GOP Senators Tom Coburn, Richard Burr, and Orrin Hatch. But it is more than a legislative prophylactic meant to protect Republicans from the charge that they aren’t for anything but a return to the dreaded “status quo.” The CARE Act, unlike the stillborn Obamacare, is a serious health care reform proposal.

As the plan’s authors put it in this op-ed, “Our proposal starts with a very different set of assumptions from those who designed ObamaCare. We believe Washington, D.C. should actually reform — not try to manage — the private health insurance market.” The CARE Act, as a necessary first step, would repeal Obamacare along with its justly reviled individual mandate. Yet, according to an analysis by the Center for Health and Economy (H&E), “The number of insured under the proposal is estimated to be 1 percent higher than under current law.” H&E also projects that it would “lower average premiums.”

 

To read more about CARE, and examine the details, go here.