WASHINGTON -- At a Boston meeting of the Republican National Committee this week, former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said the party will lose support if it continues to oppose "ObamaCare" without offering up a viable alternative. Turns out that the House GOP's conservative caucus, led by Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, is working on an alternative...
WASHINGTON -- At a Boston meeting of the Republican National Committee this week, former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said the party will lose support if it continues to oppose "ObamaCare" without offering up a viable alternative.
Turns out that the House GOP's conservative caucus, led by Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, is working on an alternative -- though it's not clear whether the plan will be brought up for a vote by the House Republican leadership or can generate any Democratic support.
The plan, nearing completion by Scalise's Republican Study Committee, won't include the mandate in President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act that require most individuals to get insurance, many with the help of government subsidies. It also would not include the mandate that businesses with 50 or more full-time workers provide health benefits, or its requirement that insurance companies not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
Instead, the Republican Study Committee bill would set aside $25 billion over 10 years for state operated high-risk systems for people with pre-existing conditions to buy insurance, according to an early draft. It would allow small businesses to pool together, under the umbrella of business associations, to purchase insurance, presumably at lower rates than the businesses can get on their own.
"Chairman Scalise, (Rep.) Phil Roe (R-Tn.) and the RSC's Health Care Working Group have been drafting an alternative to ObamaCare that repeals it and replaces it with a patient-centered reforms that lower costs and fix the problems in our healthcare system without the harmful taxes and mandates in the President's law that are increasing costs and reducing access for families," said Scalise spokesman Stephen Bell Thursday. "Chairman Scalise is planning to rollout the bill in the fall."
Gingrich, speaking to the Republican National Committee, said the GOP is getting a perception of a party that can only oppose the president's programs.
"I would bet for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks while your members of Congress are home and you look at them in the eye and you say, 'What is your positive replacement for ObamaCare?' and they will have zero answer," Gingrich said. "We are caught up right now in a culture - and you see it every single day - where as long as we are negative, as long as we are vicious, as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don't have to worry, so we don't. This is a very deep problem."
Last week, President Obama recounted at a news conference that House Republicans have voted to repeal, delay, or impede the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 40 times -- without offering an alternative.
"Now, I think the really interesting question is why it is that my friends in the other party have made the idea of preventing these people from getting health care their holy grail, their number-one priority," Obama said.
Obama said the Affordable Care is working, despite the inevitable "glitches" with any new program.
It has allowed, he said, parents to keep children 26 and younger on their health insurance plans, given rebates to millions of people whose insurance companies didn't pay out 80 percent of premiums on health care, and ended lifetime limits on coverage. Free preventive care such as mammograms, contraception and physical exams are now provided under insurance plans.
In October, Americans can buy insurance from online marketplaces, with subsidies available for those who meet income criteria, Obama said.
But Roe, a physician now in his third term, has criticized ObamaCare, approved by Congress in 2010 without a single GOP vote, as overly bureaucratic and too costly.
His spokeswoman, Tiffany McGuffee, laid out the efforts to draft an alternative, which is expected to borrow from earlier GOP health care plans.
"We're still not sure of all the policy specifics because we are still soliciting feedback from our members and other stakeholders, but we're hopeful we can drop the bill (roughly 200 pages) in mid-September. This would be a full replacement to ObamaCare and will be an actual bill, not a framework,"