This is good. On Morning Joe today, Eric Cantor insisted to Tom Brokaw that the Republicans had a real health care reform alternative in 2009.
CANTOR: Tom, you knew back in 2009 when the Obamacare bill was being considered on the House floor, we put forward our alternative. So to sit here and say we don't have a replacement is not correct. What we have now, though, is the challenge of repealing this law.It was about as complete as their budget plan, summed up in this helpful chart:
Roll Call reported on that plan, (and Barb Morrill mocked it) back in June, 2009:House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn't know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.To be fair, they did fill out their health care plan a little bit five months later. The salient part of that, ahem, reform was summed by the Wall Street Journal headline, "GOP Health Bill Gives Insurers More Leeway," and the lede paragraph:
A House Republican health-care bill wouldn't seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance, Minority Leader John Boehner said Monday.The official review by the Congressional Budget Office confirmed the worst of it: it would have increased the number of uninsured and raised premiums for millions who did have insurance. It didn't even do better on deficit reduction, saving the country $68 billion through 2019, compared to the $193 billion it recently estimated the Affordable Care Act will save through 2021.
Helluva plan you had there, Cantor. The "replace" part of repeal and replace we've all been waiting for seems to be taking shape. Take the 2009 plan, add in Mitt Romney's vision for reform, and his and Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare (and Medicaid), and it looks like we've finally got it.
Ladies and gentleman, the official Republican Obamacare replacement plan: "Let him die!"
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