Paul Ryan Starring In The Replacements

It's been several months since House Republicans tried to con America with the ol' "replacement plan for Obamacare" scam, mainly because the GOP base has finally figured out that the House GOP really doesn't have an actual plan to replace Obamacare.

But hey, since this is the House GOP and the GOP base here and it's an election year, it's time to try the Obamacare replacement scam again in order to stave off the effects of Trumpism on those down ballot races.  Republicans aren't too bright after all.

Two Republican lawmakers on Thursday introduced an alternative to ObamaCare as the House develops its own healthcare plan.

The bill from Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) does not fully repeal ObamaCare, a notable departure from the GOP’s long-stated goal.

But it would eliminate many central aspects of the Affordable Care Act, including the mandates for individuals to have coverage and for employers to provide it, as well as requirements for what an insurance plan must cover.

The core of the plan is a $2,500 tax credit that any citizen would be eligible for and use to purchase health insurance. The lawmakers say this gives flexibility to people, whether they get employer-based insurance or not, to more directly control their healthcare spending, for example by using a health savings account.

Sessions and Cassidy are putting forward their plan as a task force set up by Speaker Paul Ryan(R-Wis.) is nearing the release of its own plan to fully repeal ObamaCare and replace it with an alternative.

Sessions, the chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, said in an interview that his plan is not meant to compete with that effort.

“Everybody's submitting their ideas, so it's very complimentary,” he said.

The Ryan-backed task force, though, will not be releasing a bill; it will instead be a general outline of ideas.

“The thing that makes us different is we made a bill out of it, and that's the hard part,” Sessions said. “It's really easy to have ideas. It's really hard to put it in a bill that works.”

Well, unless you think a $2,500 tax credit is going to help people who don't pay a lot of federal taxes to begin with buy health insurance they will no longer be able to afford, the bill doesn't work, and millions (if not tens of millions) will lose their insurance under the plan.   The rest of us get to toss our money into spend-it-or-lose-it Health Savings Accounts (which Wall Street loves.)

So of course this is a bad idea, Republicans came up with it.  They hope it will be able to stanch the Trump rage of "throw them all out" in November.

Somehow I don't think it'll be enough.