My must read of the day is "House Republican leaders craft their vision for an alternative to health care law," in the Washington Post:
House Republican leaders are adopting an agreed-upon conservative approach to fixing the nation’s health care system, in part to draw an election-year contrast with President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
The plan includes an expansion of high-risk insurance pools, promotion of health savings accounts, and inducements for small businesses to purchase coverage together. [...]
"We’ve got to get to where you can compare the two perspectives, Republican and Democrat," House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said in an interview. [...]
The Republicans’ plan is hardly intended as a full replacement of the federal health care law — and that is by design. They would prefer to see a shift away from the federal government and to the states, with an emphasis on getting more consumers on private plans.
This is immensely important.
Republicans have had alternate plans in in the past. There were multiple from Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.) and later the RSC and Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.), but one has yet to be backed by leadership. Everyone seemed to acknowledge that a complete alternative would eventually be necessary, but until now there seemed to be tepid consensus on what that plan should be.
The lack of agreement provided Democrats with great talking points. They could pan Republicans for trying to destroy healthcare reform while pointing to their missing alternative as evidence that they had no desire to fix anything, rather their only goal was to stonewall the Democrats effort to improve the flawed health care system—for everyone.
The notion that Republicans had "no alternative" was always a slightly inaccurate criticism, but it was fair because leadership had not backed a plan. Now it looks like they will. That would take one of the Democrats most successful and concise talking points off the table—and it will likely put Republicans in an even stronger position for the midterms.