[sunnykerr]

Three Republican senators offer Obamacare alternative (Reuters) - Three prominent Republican senators on Monday called for replacing Obamacare with a package of election-year proposals intended to lower health insurance costs while retaining some elements of President Barack Obama's health reform law. Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Orrin Hatch of Utah released a legislative blueprint that analysts say could help the Republican Party offer a much-needed vision for healthcare ahead of November's mid-term congressional elections, voting that will determine which party controls Congress in the final two years of the Obama presidency. The proposals came a day before Obama is scheduled to defend his top domestic policy in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. "The American people have found out what is in Obamacare - broken promises in the form of increased healthcare costs, costly mandates and government bureaucracy. They don't like it and don't want to keep it," Burr said in a statement. Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has extended health coverage to millions of people, despite a botched October rollout. The administration says 6.3 million people have signed up for private insurance as a result of implementation. A similar number have been determined eligible for Medicaid coverage. The Republican alternative - dubbed the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility and Empowerment Act, or CARE Act - would repeal Obamacare's mandates, taxes and fees and replace the law with what aides called "common-sense, patient-centered" reforms intended to lower costs. As with earlier Republican initiatives, the approach would address costs by making consumers responsible for more of their medical bills, with assistance from health savings accounts funded with pre-tax dollars that could be used to pay for insurance premiums as well as healthcare services. The plan would keep in place two popular Obamacare provisions by banning lifetime limits on insurance benefits and allowing adult children to stay on their parents' health plans until age 26. It would scale back Obamacare subsidies to help lower-income people buy private insurance, allow insurers to charge older people more and protect the sick against insurance market discrimination only if they remain continuously insured. Medicaid, the program for the poor, which Obamacare would expand to Americans with incomes of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, would be limited to mothers, children and the frail. Federal payments would be capped but states would receive greater flexibility to run their own Medicaid programs. Funding for the CARE Act would come mainly from new federal taxes on employer-sponsored health plans, which are currently excluded from taxation. The Republican proposal would make 35 percent of a plan's value taxable for employees but keep employer tax deductions unchanged. At the same time, it would leave in place as estimated $700 million in reduced payments to Medicare, while lawmakers seek a separate bipartisan agreement on how to reform the program for the elderly and disabled. The White House was dismissive. "This looks very much like just another repeal proposal, another attempt to raise taxes on the middle class, to keep uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions locked out of the market, to raise costs on seniors and to take away Medicaid from the millions of Americans," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing. But analysts said the proposal could help Republicans in the coming months. "It gives them an opportunity to talk about these things in a more positive way than just repeal and replace," said Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. Republicans have already made Obamacare a major campaign issue in hopes of leveraging the law's unpopularity into active voter support in November. Republicans voted to repeal, defund or dismantle the law more than 40 times in the House of Representatives. Of likely U.S. voters, 43 percent view Obamacare at least somewhat favorably, while 52 percent have an unfavorable view, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released on Monday. But there is no consensus on how to replace the law and party leaders believe it important enough to offer a positive vision that House Republicans have made it a major topic for their annual retreat this week.

So their big plan, as I gather, is to ask seniors to pay more, remove subsidies for indigent men, ask the ensured to pay for more of their care (beyond what they already contribute to their insurance) and defund federal medical-assistance programs.

In Canada, that would be considered cruel and callous.

I hope it doesn't fly, because we're 14 years into the new century and the United States has yet to join the rest of the industrialized world in a comprehensive social approach to medical care.

[GardenSirens]

Repubbies and conservatives have since 2010 have made serious efforts to change obamacare, have alternatives, rewrite the language of it, etc... it leads to nothing. Obama is giving his State of the Union tonight and addressing some stuff on healthcare. Going to be very interesting. Fox News has some ad campaign to get people not to tune into it (which is weird because they broadcast it and ratings equals money)

[sunnykerr]

And was it interesting, the State of the Union address?

How about the Republican response, or the Tea Party response?

I know shutting down the government didn't stop Obamacare from being implemented.

The Republicans refused to be part of the drafting of that law, so ever since it's become clear that it was going to go in effect, they've been scrambling for a way to prove their relevancy to that issue again.

[GardenSirens]

When you typed that, the State of the Union was still going on (ended 1030pm eastern time). It was a great speech and he made a lot of demands, promises and just positive things. They kept showing the republicans not clapping for him, lol. We'll see the backlashes from it thoughout the week so I'll keep my ears open.

[sunnykerr]

It was time for a new thread.

As this is the Republican Discussion Thread, I was wondering how the Republicans and Tea Party responded to the State of the Union.

Don't they usually have an official response right after?

I remember when Michele Bachman delivered one years ago, for instance.

[quaist]

Thanks for the new thread, Sunny!

As far as a Republican statement is concerned, there is Cathy McMorris Rodgers' response.

Seems to me she didn't offer any revolutionary new ideas, though.

[GardenSirens]

There were so many responses. My favorite take away from it is that their special guest was a guy from Duck Dynasty...Obama's guest was a wounded soldier.

[sunnykerr]

Thanks for the link, Christina.

What a load of old tosh!!!

The very notion that free-market values are a better guide for society than a government elected by its people.

Free market is how the United States got in trouble last decade.

And I notice that all of these vague notions about the evil of government (as spoken by an elected representative, who is apparently not too familiar with irony to understand the ridiculousness of such an assertion coming out of her mouth) are couched in ludicrously sentimental twaddle.

"The important moments aren't happening on Capitol Hill, it's kissing your kids goodnight... my dad was such a good man..."



As if we're all a bunch of children looking to buy into a fairytale.

[quaist]

Yeah, she tried pulling at people's heartstrings a bit too hard.

Even using her son's Down's syndrome in that context... Seems very inappropriate.

Originally Posted by placebobsh (View Post) There were so many responses. My favorite take away from it is that their special guest was a guy from Duck Dynasty...Obama's guest was a wounded soldier.

Special guests?

[GardenSirens]

Originally Posted by quaist (View Post) Yeah, she tried pulling at people's heartstrings a bit too hard. Even using her son's Down's syndrome in that context... Seems very inappropriate. Special guests?

Politicians are allowed to bring "special guests" with them to things like the state of the union. Since Obama's been in charge, they've been gay rights activists, down on their luck single parents, wounded soldiers. Conservatives have brought people like Duck Dynasty (I don't know their names) and Ted Nugent (god help us all him in washington).

[sunnykerr]

The Duck Dynasty people aren't much better than Ted Nuggent, to be honest.

Gay people are an abomination and black people were better off in Jim Crow America?



Anyway, this sentimental journey the Republican likes to take when talking about what they want to do is rather sickening.

What they do wind up doing when they have power is so completely different than what they sell that I can't understand how they reconcile that.

[GardenSirens]

I just wish Republicans would get back to actually helping people instead of just doing the reverse of what Obama does/wants to do.

[quaist]

Seems the GOP still has foot-in-mouth disease

[GardenSirens]

haha yes they do....and there is no cure for that

[sunnykerr]

I do think they've got bigger problems.