Days before the Supreme Court will weigh whether to gut the Affordable Care Act, conservatives gathered on Thursday, the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference, to pitch their ideas for how to replace the law Republicans have unsuccessfully voted to repeal more than 50 times.
Unfortunately, the lawmakers and policy expert on a panel called “The Conservative Replacement to Obamacare” could offer no new ideas for alternative legislation.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) agreed that the president’s healthcare law should be struck down — either by the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell, the suit that claims the federal subsidies in the law are unconstitutional, or by winning the White House in 2016.
“More and more people are going to be subsidized in a way we think is illegal,” Barrasso said about the lawsuit during the panel. “We want to use this as an opportunity to get the power out of Washington and back to people at the state level.”
When asked by moderator Amy Frederick, the head of anti-Medicare group 60 Plus Association, for specifics on the “many good ideas out there” to replace the law, the panel didn’t have any new policy ideas to offer. Jim Capretta, a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, pointed to “a couple of very good bills that have been introduced” which he said would provide tax treatment changes, flexibility in the marketplace and movement toward cost reductions.
But the replacement legislation that has been proposed by Republican lawmakers include the same proposals which have been proven to fail. Any credible alternatives would end up having to embrace parts of Obamacare, including allowing children to stay on their parents’ health care plans and mandating insurers to renew policies.
Capretta also praised an alternative that has been proposed by GOP lawmakers Sen. Richard Burr (NC), Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT) and Rep. Fred Upton (MI), but their proposal would roll back some of the major consumer protections, including maternity care for pregnant women. Obamacare mandates maternity coverage in all of the plans sold on its state-level marketplaces to address the gender-biased disparities that were rampant in the individual market before the legislation was signed.
Early in 2014, a similar trio of Republican lawmakers proposed a nearly identical alternative to Obamacare that never got off the ground. But their solution would also have kicked millions of Americans off their health plans, would do little to protect those with pre-existing conditions and would have provided fewer subsidies for those living at the poverty level to buy healthcare.
Republicans are unlikely to endorse any proposal that would guarantee universal coverage, so any alternative would fall short of current law. For instance, while the ACA extends insurance to some 30 million people, a 2009 GOP proposal would have only covered 3 million people.
Over the past several years, the Republican party has not been able to unite around a single Obamacare replacement, and outside observers have become increasingly skeptical that Republicans have any kind of viable alternative at all.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell next week. If the court were to strike down the law, 8.2 million Americans would lose their healthcare coverage, many of whom have life-threatening conditions.