You Get What You Paid For

GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan, supposedly a very intellectual policy wonk and details guy, doesn't actually have time for details when it comes to his plans for eliminating Obamacare (and Medicare and Medicaid along with it).

The Wisconsin Republican promised during an interview on CNN that the repeal of Obamacare would lower the costs of health care by providing “vouchers” to poor Americans.

CNN host Jake Tapper noted that many women were paying nothing for birth control thanks to an Affordable Care Act mandate.

“Is that going to end?” he wondered.

“Look, I’m not going to get into all the little nitty-gritty details of these things,” Ryan replied curtly.

“With all due respect,” Tapper countered, “I don’t know that the average woman of childbearing years out there who relies upon contraception provided by health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act, I don’t know that she would think that that’s just a nitty-gritty detail.”

“You’re asking me details about legislation that hasn’t been written yet!” Ryan complained.

“Right, but would that be a principle of whatever replaces [Obamacare]?” Tapper wondered.

“I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about legislation that hasn’t even been drafted,” Ryan stated defiantly.

Except Ryan is the guy who drafted exactly the House plan to repeal and replace Obamacare as part of his budget plan which has been readily available for several years, as the GOP keeps proposing it as draft legislation.  And other legislation that Ryan has written makes it very clear where he stands on birth control and what will replace Obamacare:

Ryan has co-sponsored the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which would give fetuses the same rights as human beings. The measure would have also criminalized certain types of birth control. Ryan, who is Catholic, has called the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate a “threat” to poor Americans.

So yeah, if you think birth control is another one of those questions that will be left to the states, wait until the GOP talks Trump into signing laws like this.