Well, there have been opposing plans all along and the Dems have denied they exist. Hopefully now they won't get away with that.


Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma say their blueprint – which you can see here – is intended to start a debate among their colleagues about the kind of health policy they can agree on.

Out, in their version:

- The requirement for employers to provide coverage or pay a penalty

- The requirement for individuals to buy coverage or pay a penalty

- Taxes, including those on medical devices, insurance plans, and employers who offer high-cost plans

- Defined packages of benefits for what insurers must cover (including contraception)

- Restrictions on how insurers price coverage

- Government-run websites for insurance shopping.

In, with a twist:

- Fixed-value tax credits for people making between $0 to three times the poverty line. The 2010 Democratic health law pegs the value of credits to local insurance costs and gives them to people making between the federal poverty level and four times that amount

- Capping funding for states’ Medicaid programs based on the number of poor residents they have, with few strings attached about how states use the money. The 2010 health law has large infusions of federal funding for states to expand Medicaid to include almost everyone making up to a little more than the poverty level.

- Requirements that insurers cannot cap benefits, and must accept people with pre-existing conditions as long as they signed up in a one-time enrollment window if they were previously uninsured, or immediately signed up for a new plan after losing their previous coverage. The 2010 law has fixed open enrollment periods with exceptions for life-changing events but doesn’t require people to have maintained coverage as a condition of signing up.

There are a few other additions: beefed-up state high-risk pools to segregate the most expensive consumers from the rest of the insurance market, changes aimed at boosting the use of health-savings accounts, and some tort reform proposals.


http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/01/27...ternative/

What's it called? The Co-Burn Burr Hatch?

The time for proposing something like this was 25 years ago.

Better late than never, I guess…

(01-28-2014 12:28 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  The time for proposing something like this was 25 years ago.

Better late than never, I guess…

The Republicans have spent so much time crafting their message around what they're against that nobody is quite sure what they're for anymore. That's why it has been so easy for the Dems to twist their platform to be one of obstruction instead of just a different vision for how to move America forward.

Instead of having 40+ votes to repeal the ACA, they should have been having 40+ votes passing amendments and alternatives. If the GOP had demanded that the Senate have an up or down vote on an ACA alternative instead of the whole "defund obama care or shut down the government" fiasco this fall, Cruz would be seen as a leader of the Republican Party and not a Tea Party liability that has to be contained before he does more damage.

It is so frustrating watching the Republican Party waste their political capital on stupid stunts and negative messaging.

Quote:they should have been having 40+ votes passing amendments and alternatives.

"Republicans didn't bring anything to the floor of the Senate, because Reid _refused_ to allow any Republican proposals to see the floor'

Oh you missed that second half of that complex sentence in the media? Yeah, I didn't see them include that fact in their reporting either.

(01-28-2014 08:35 AM)Hitch Wrote:  demanded that the Senate have an up or down vote on an ACA alternative instead of the whole "defund obama care or shut down the government" fiasco this fall

1. That "fiasco" was wildly exaggerated in terms of its political impact.
2. It wasn't about "defund ObamaCare or shut down the government", although that is (naturally) how the media framed it. In reality, it was about "postpone ObamaCare by a year or shut down the government." And even that was negotiated in the Democrats' favor to merely "postpone the 'individual mandate' by a year or shut down the government".

This is great news. And it only took them 5 years.

(01-28-2014 10:27 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  This is great news. And it only took them 5 years.

Think Reid will allow any alternatives this time?

(01-28-2014 10:29 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 10:27 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  This is great news. And it only took them 5 years.

Think Reid will allow any alternatives this time?

Probably not. It's 5 years too late.

Well, since it's late we ought to just destroy our whole system then huh?

(01-28-2014 10:27 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  This is great news. And it only took them 5 years.

You want to talk about late. Maybe you haven't been keeping up with the Presidential Liar on how his roll out of his legacy program has been working. Sure you want to bring up the word late? Seriously.

(01-28-2014 10:30 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 10:29 AM)VA49er Wrote:  Think Reid will allow any alternatives this time?

Probably not. It's 5 years too late.

Reid would not have allowed it 4 or 5 years ago, either. So in terms of the actual legislative language, it doesn't matter at all when GOP proposals came forward. Although, for the record, there have been various GOP health-care ideas kicking around since the 1970s.

Let Reid and the D's do their thing, and let Coburn and the R's do their thing. The voters will have to decide which approach they prefer.

(01-28-2014 10:37 AM)EagleRockCafe Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 10:27 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  This is great news. And it only took them 5 years.

You want to talk about late. Maybe you haven't been keeping up with the Presidential Liar on how his roll out of his legacy program has been working. Sure you want to bring up the word late? Seriously.

It's not too late. Obamacare isn't up and running in any meaningful way. Better to trash it and start over then to go on with it just because it exists (as the screwed up mess that it is).

Maybe it took 5 years to fully craft the language rather than what the democrats did in ramming through a POS plan like Obamacare just to get it done while they had both sides of the legislative body and the executive office.

The 40+ votes have a practical value in that in the next election cycle, ads can be run saying: "Congressman Dodohead voted for Obamacare 40 times."

(01-28-2014 10:54 AM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 10:37 AM)EagleRockCafe Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 10:27 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  This is great news. And it only took them 5 years.

You want to talk about late. Maybe you haven't been keeping up with the Presidential Liar on how his roll out of his legacy program has been working. Sure you want to bring up the word late? Seriously.

It's not too late. Obamacare isn't up and running in any meaningful way. Better to trash it and start over then to go on with it just because it exists (as the screwed up mess that it is).

Maybe it took 5 years to fully craft the language rather than what the democrats did in ramming through a POS plan like Obamacare just to get it done while they had both sides of the legislative body and the executive office.

I don't have a problem with changing what doesn't work about Obamacare. However, the republicans had their chance to be a part of the process and they chose to sit on their hands and do nothing.

In my opinion, it's too little too late and simply a political calculation.

(01-28-2014 10:58 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I don't have a problem with changing what doesn't work about Obamacare. However, the republicans had their chance to be a part of the process and they chose to sit on their hands and do nothing.

In my opinion, it's too little too late and simply a political calculation.

Since the Dems had all the votes they needed, in what way would the Republicans be part of the process?

(01-28-2014 11:07 AM)GeorgeBorkFan Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 10:58 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I don't have a problem with changing what doesn't work about Obamacare. However, the republicans had their chance to be a part of the process and they chose to sit on their hands and do nothing.

In my opinion, it's too little too late and simply a political calculation.

Since the Dems had all the votes they needed, in what way would the Republicans be part of the process?

There was no negotiation allowed at the time Obamacare was rammed through and Reid wouldn't bring any Republican amendments to Obamacare to the floor of the Senate so how were they sitting on their hands exactly?

BTW It is never too late to get rid of and repeal bad laws. America has repealed bad laws in the past and either done away with them (fiugitive slave act of 1850, Food and Fuel Control Act of August 10, 1917) or repealed and replaced (Glass-Steagall was repealed and replaced with Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 or 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution which was repealed and replaced with 1973 Congress passed the War Powers Resolution).

There is precedence for repealing passed laws and doing away with them or replacing them. Pray tell me why should we keep Obamacare if it sucks just because it was passed?

(01-28-2014 11:20 AM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  Pray tell me why should we keep Obamacare if it sucks just because it was passed?

Because Obama's political manhood is invested in it, and Democrats don't want to cut it off.

(01-28-2014 12:03 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 11:20 AM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  Pray tell me why should we keep Obamacare if it sucks just because it was passed?

Because Obama's political manhood is invested in it, and Democrats don't want to cut it off.

Democrats might not want to cut it off but the majority of Americans would gladly go Lorena Bobbitt on it.

(01-28-2014 08:35 AM)Hitch Wrote:  

(01-28-2014 12:28 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  The time for proposing something like this was 25 years ago.

Better late than never, I guess…

The Republicans have spent so much time crafting their message around what they're against that nobody is quite sure what they're for anymore. That's why it has been so easy for the Dems to twist their platform to be one of obstruction instead of just a different vision for how to move America forward.

Instead of having 40+ votes to repeal the ACA, they should have been having 40+ votes passing amendments and alternatives. If the GOP had demanded that the Senate have an up or down vote on an ACA alternative instead of the whole "defund obama care or shut down the government" fiasco this fall, Cruz would be seen as a leader of the Republican Party and not a Tea Party liability that has to be contained before he does more damage.

It is so frustrating watching the Republican Party waste their political capital on stupid stunts and negative messaging.

Do us all a favor and go read up a bit about these "40 votes to repeal" garbage, before your simply parrot whatever some leftist blogger or MSLSD pie hole is telling you. Then get back to us with what you find.

Tell us how may of the"40 votes to repeal" were actually passed through the Senate and signed into law by the deceiver in chief himself. Check out how many were slight tweaks to correct language, how many actually repealed parts of this disaster in an attempt to "fix" one horrible element or another.

Then compare this to how many were straight votes, up or down, to "repeal" zerOcare. You'll be pretty surprised by what you find.

Til then, until you know what you're talking about, stop with the leftists narrative.