GOP LEADERS McCONNELL & BOEHNER: “REGARDING OBAMACARE: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR”

…Speaker Boehner has called for repealing Obamacare over 50 times.

 

The Republicans have no Idea what to do beyond repealing Obamacare.

The Republican Party leaders have been repeatedly calling for the repeal of “Obamacare” for 5 years now, and yet they have not offered any plans for what they would replace the ACA with if they were to be successful in a repeal.  Now the ACA it is up for the conservative US Supreme Court to go after the foundation of the ACA.  A court decision is expected by June.  

 

However, under an agreement of anonymity, a conservative aide close to the Republican lawmakers agreed to speak candidly about the GOP leadership’s concerns regarding Obamacare.

This individual at first wanted to make it clearly understood that, "This idea that we're ready to go if we had an ACA repeal? Well, actually no, we're not.  America’s health care is an opportunity that we've failed at for the last two decades. We've not been particularly close to being on the same page as the American public on this subject for all of those two

decades."

 

The reality is that they actually have nothing even close to a firm idea as to what to offer as a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. 

Per the new Senate Finance Committee Chair, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), all he could say was, "There are a lot of ideas, if the case goes the way I think it should go ... then we've gotta come up with a way of resolving the problems we're in. We're quietly looking at all that and trying to do that."

Whatever all that means???

Being a health policy aide for those Republicans like Senator Hatch, it must be the most frustrating job in government. But at least we know that the aides aren't being overworked

All that the now Republican run House and Senate are trying to do today is to "make the world safe for Chief Justice John Roberts to overturn the Obamacare subsidies”, said this one outside Republican aide.  "What I worry about is the goal to not let our guys look like they're going crazy and letting the nation spin into chaos." In other words, Republicans must show they're willing and able to deal with the issue, which so far, they keep proving that they aren’t.

The conversation got further into the real issues when this anonymous individual stated, “The one big challenge is that any GOP plan would be unlikely to cover as many people [as Obamacare], making it an easy piñata for Democrats to pound. That's the brutal truth. We have a problem with that for very specific reasons. That being, we don't have good responses for the American public.  Show me the constituent in a Town Hall meeting who you can tell that it's OK for them to lose their health insurance."

Mr. Thomas Miller, a health policy expert at the super-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), said that the Republicans are highly unlikely to have a "fully formed" plan before the high court’s ruling in June.  Actually, as of the last few years, the Republicans have even dropped their “repeal and replace” talking point, and have replaced it with just “repeal”.  They have no idea as to what they should do if the Supreme Court rules in their favor.

Many of the newly elected Republican representatives, haven't even had a chance to come up with a way to prove to their Tea Party voters, and to their big donators like the Koch brothers, that they really do hate Obamacare, or even why they hate it!  Little by little, the American public is learning that Obamacare is a good idea and more and more, Americans don’t want it to go away.

As a replacement to the ACA, representatives were asked about the prospect of the Republican politicians calling on their states to set up their own insurance exchanges.  The response was, that was highly unlikely because the conservatives would most likely just attack that move as being more support for Obamacare.  When Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) were asked about that possibility, they both said, “No way”.

So, what do they do if the high court rules in the GOP’s favor?  They, nor anybody else, has any clue if that were to happen.

Yep, if the Congressional Republicans get their wish that the high court is going to crush Obamacare, then what?

As that poor, beleaguered policy aide says, "Our guys feel like: If the Republican Chess King wins, the game is over, we win. But the reality is that if the Republican’s King wins, they [the Obama administration and Democrats] will hold a lot of high cards.  And we will be there left holding squat?"

I think this aide is telling the whole truth.  I would not want to be in charge of both Houses of Congress and then be required to tell all those millions of Americans that currently have affordable health care for the first time in their lives; “Sorry Mr. & Mrs. American family, we’re taking your whole family’s health care coverage away.  Back to no coverage on pre-existing ailments and your children under 26 are no longer covered.”

Sure doesn’t sound like a winning 2016 GOP strategy to me.

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