The Latest Republican Flim-Flam On Obamacare "Replacement"

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(Tom Toles, once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle)

Frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank on the not-new Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party's "Obamacare Replacement Plan" (a.k.a., "Cover For The Right-Wing Supreme Court To Destroy Obamacare"):

On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee put out a news release announcing “Burr, Hatch, Upton Unveil Obamacare Replacement Plan.” The three men, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (Utah), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (Mich.) and Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), are well-regarded legislators, and the press went along with this “news.”  [snip] 

But Caroline Behringer, the eagle-eyed press secretary for Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, was suspicious that this “urgent” and “explosive” new proposal had just been “devised.” So she did some sleuthing and discovered that the Republicans had lifted the thing — right down to quotes in the news release — from the rollout of the same proposal a year earlier. 

Of course, "the press went along with this 'news.'"  In some cases, it may have been an unteachable willingness to believe Republicans are sincere about universal, affordable health care (=cough= The Hill =cough=), and in others it was just Republican media catapulting bullshit (=cough= The Examiner = Forbes =cough=).  Milbank helpfully has a side- by- side comparison of Republican press releases from a year ago and now that are virtually identical, which the intrepid and/or cynical press "missed."

In any event, as Milbank correctly observes,

This exercise in cut-and-paste legislation would seem to suggest that Republicans are not serious about their “new” proposal. Like last time, the plan hasn’t been drafted in legislative language, so it can’t be reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office to see how much it would cost and how many would lose insurance. 

And there’s good reason for that: Opposing the Affordable Care Act in the abstract is easy enough, but it becomes more challenging when you present a specific alternative, because such cheaper alternatives inevitably cover fewer people and make consumers pay more for benefits. This explains why the House, in passing its 56th attempt at some form of Obamacare repeal this week, included no specific alternative but rather a suggestion that committees get together and come up with some ideas.  (our emphasis)

Of course, this charade may be enough cover for the malicious Republican sociopaths on the Supreme Court to gut Obamacare in the utterly bogus King v. Burwell case to be decided later this year.  Which is all that this "new" plan - and anything else the Republicans might put forward on health care insurance - is about anyway.