Republicans Got Nothing On Healthcare

The New Republic

Report
05/09/11

Face It: Republicans Will Never Come Up With a Health Care Plan 

Jonathan Chait 

One of the things Republicans seem to have forgotten, in the wake of the introduction and swift passage of their Dickensian budget crafted by Paul Ryan, is their unshakeable commitment to health care reform. Remember that? Throughout the health care debate, they were determined to rally around their own reform plan. And now the House has passed a long-term budget that yanks health insurance away from more than 40 million Americans and neglects to put anything in its place. Maybe it’s just an oversight, like the time in freshman year when I turned in a history paper with no bibliography. But it’s kind of starting to look like the Republicans don’t actually plan to do anything for the uninsured.

The history of the elusive Republican quest for a health care plan dates back at least to 1993. President Clinton had proposed comprehensive reform; the public believed the system to be in crisis. Congressional Republicans came up with a combination of subsidies, market regulation, and an individual mandate that presaged the law eventually signed by President Obama last year.

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