Republicans insist that they have a viable alternative to the Affordable Health Care Act should they succeed in repealing it. But as guest host Ezra Klein pointed out on Tuesday's The Rachel Maddow Show, their plan would only cover one tenth as many uninsured people as the ACA.
The GOP's proposed ACA substitute, which they also proposed in 2009 during the height of the health care fight, mainly focuses on issues like tort reform and allowing insurers to sell across state lines. As Klein put it, these are mostly "tweaks," and wouldn't really have a big impact on the health care system. The big question is how the plan would deal with the millions of people who don't currently have insurance.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-KY), was painfully honest about this part of the plan in a recent interview on Fox News Sunday. In response to a question from Chris Wallace about how to deal with the growing number of Americans who don't have health insurance, McConnell said: "That is not the issue."
As Klein pointed out, "the Republicans don't really see covering the uninsured as 'the issue,'" and that's reflected in the plan. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates their plan by 2019, it would cover 3 million uninsured people—compared with the 30 million-plus people the ACA will cover by the same year.
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The only "plan" the Republicans have is to repeat what they have miserably failed at, that has caused 2 depressions and to do everything they can to defeat president Obama's recovery measures. Basically they have tons of papier mache.
Ezra was plainly superb, the last few nights. He is always informative, precise and pays attention to facts rather than rhetoric. His calm delivery gives confidence to the structure of his arguments.
In the case of the GOP plan for the uninsured, Ezra construction of the GOP position as a total, comparative failure, in meeting the goal of addressing the problem, was perfection. Thus, Jillian Rayfield was able to give summation to the segment in the simplest of structured paragraphs, without much elaboration. Speaks highly for both Ezra and Jillian. Smart people.
Face it folks, the GOP lied and lied big. They never HAD a serious health reform plan. Their base got played for suckers so they could push their one-term President agenda.
From now on, the Democrats need to start pushing back much harder, from the outset, against the phony and false narratives that the Republicans keep putting out. More tough voices are needed, and Democrats need to VOTE.
Tort reform? I once thought that the GOP were talking about frivolous lawsuits, but it seems they're ready to give their corporate friends a pass on everything. The last thing we need is a cap on damages when thousands of people a year see their lives screwed up by crack-pot Doctors and Nurses. I couldn't believe the numbers when I looked it up. And this will do nothing to bring down health care costs, they already tried it in Texas, and it did nothing. This is just another example of the GOP looking out for corporate interests over the people.
The GOP healthcare PLAN??? I'd say it's more like a healthcare SCHEME!!!
If you were to poll all the recent news reports on hospital finances ,you will see we have an epidemic rise in charity care. Just as pneumonia is serious patient condition so to is charity care when it comes to the financial condition of a hospital. The political landscape is rumbling over the ACA while our hospitals become the manifestation of the earthquake. Continued increases in charity care ( increase in the uninsured) may put many of our hospitals in the ICU.
When people can't afford healthcare people don't go to hospitals, and like any business if you don't have consumers you don't make money
The GOPs' Healthcare plan is just another get rich quick scheme for their cronnies