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Ellison’s Must Read of the Day

Ellison must read
April 28, 2014

My must read of the day is "More Evidence That Republicans Are Abandoning Obamacare Repeal," by Brian Beutler in The New Republic:

Despite the namecheck, Boehner's not even really promoting the "repeal and replace." He's admitting that the best conservatives can hope for is a phased regression toward something more GOP-friendly. Or perhaps "replace and repeal."

But if you don't believe me, check out his deputy Eric Cantor, who asserted the following in a five-page memo to GOP House members this afternoon.

"Building an America that Works requires that we … [r]eform our healthcare system by replacing Obamacare with policies that improve patient choice, access to doctors and hospitals, and lower costs."

A notable departure? I don’t see that. Beutler is making the argument that Republicans are not really doing the "repeal and replace" thing anymore, but solely focusing on replacing it.

Most Republicans campaigned on "repeal and replace" in 2010, and you can find numerous Republican lawmakers advocating for that strategy four years ago, two years ago, and throughout the last four years. It does seem to be the case that right now they’re working on the replace aspect, but I don’t think that means they’ve stopped planning to repeal it. Instead, the repeal and replace efforts seem to be more simultaneous than in the past. That’s an adaption of tactics, not an abandonment of them.

The biggest change Republicans have made to the current law, or the most controversial of late, is when they passed a provision to eliminate deductible caps in small group policies. That could represent a shift like Beutler is describing, but when I spoke to Republicans on the Hill, they argued that the provision wasn’t a "fix" for Obamacare because ultimately it would allow businesses to offer more private plans, like HSAs, and less people would go into the exchanges. That, they said, doesn’t help the law at all.

Consequently, I don’t think that counts as a step towards "replacement" because the long-term sustainability of the law really depends on having people in the exchanges—that provision doesn’t help that.

Republicans didn’t win in 2012. They can’t repeal the law anytime soon, so they’re trying to make pieces of the law better for their constituents now—but they’re not, by any stretch replacing or "fixing" the current law. In fact, leadership seems to be more serious about backing a GOP replacement and that makes winning in 2016 and then repealing and replacing the law much more likely.