Paul Ryan revealed today that the GOP is just licking its chops over a potential Supreme Court ruling that will let Republicans kill the plan and tell us that they are “freeing” us from it. Just don't ask how they'll help people get health care.
A few days ago, the conservative Washington Examiner noted that Americans want ObamaCare - and its subsidies that are at the heart of the Supreme Court case - fixed, not done away with. But the Republicans don't seem to care - because freedom!
During Ryan’s interview with host Chris Wallace, there were the following exchanges:
WALLACE: Question: if the court does rule against ObamaCare, against these subsidies, says that they’re illegal to the federal exchanges—will Republicans come up with a way, Republicans in Congress, to make sure that those 6 million to 7 million people who depend on these subsidies in those 34 states are not left high and dry?
RYAN: Yes, we will have an answer. We will have a solution. We don’t want people to fall victim because of this bad law.
We want to give people freedom from ObamaCare. We want to give people a bridge from ObamaCare.
So, not only do we want to make sure that families don’t suffer because of the failures of this law, we also want to give states the freedom to go their own direction and make it better. This law is failing. It’s collapsing. Even if the court ruled for ObamacCare, you still have a disaster on our hands—double digit premium increases, people are not getting what they want.
So, we want to give people freedom, the ability to buy what they want to buy, which is what Obama said you could do, and give states more control.…We will have a solution that addresses this law, that gives people a bridge from Obamacare and that addresses people who are getting caught in the crossfire, that are getting caught in this ruling.
… And the solution, I won’t go into all details because, quite frankly, Chris, we want to see the nature of the ruling.
In truth, Ryan refused to go into any of the details but in the tradition of the best hucksters, he kept insisting we’d get them… eventually.
You can’t blame Wallace for this obfuscation, though. He did a fine job of pressing for details.
WALLACE: But here’s the question: will you demand an end to the mandates, employer mandates, individual mandates, which (HHS) Secretary Burwell said would in effect be repealing ObamaCare and that the president would veto?
RYAN: Well, I’m not going to get to all of that right now, because we want to see what the ruling is. But we want to give people freedom from ObamaCare. We want to let people actually buy what they want to buy so that we can lower healthcare prices.
And Ryan tried to distract from his obfuscation by blaming the Obama administration.
WALLACE: But, what (Secretary Burwell’s) saying is your solution is going to be something an offer that the president can’t accept.
RYAN: Here’s what they’re saying, is they’re going to hold up one piece page of paper and he’s going to say, it’s my way or the highway. Just give me my law, you know, ram it down throats of the Americans again. We’re not going to do that. I think everybody knows we’re not going to do that. That’s what I was asking the secretary which is, are you going to be intransigent and stubborn and say it’s only my way or the highway, or are you going to work with Congress to fix this absolutely failed law and give us the ability to get people out of this so that we can have more freedom for individuals, more freedom for states? And we’ll find out. 30 percent premium increases.
Wallace pointed out that what Ryan called an “absolutely failed law” has had some big successes.
WALLACE: Under ObamaCare, 16 million Americans have gained health coverage. Healthcare costs have risen at their slowest level in 50 years and up to 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions are no longer in risk of losing coverage.
And meanwhile, for all of the complaints, Congressman, we’re five years into ObamaCare, Republicans have still not come up with a coherent plan that will ensure that all of those millions of uninsured people get coverage.
Ryan didn't want to talk about the successes. Instead, he argued that the Republicans have always had a plan.
RYAN: When ObamaCare was being debated, we offered lots of different plans. We offered comprehensive alternative solutions to ObamaCare. Tom Coburn and I had a bill, for example, that would have dealt with this.
Here’s a deal—we can have a system in America where everybody can get affordable coverage, including people with pre-existing conditions, without this costly government takeover, without raiding Medicare, without telling people you have to buy what the government says you have to buy on a government marketplace.
...
WALLACE: Do you have a plan that would make sure that, for instance here, 16 million Americans who didn’t have health insurance will get health insurance?
PAUL: So, yes, we will. We want to see what the ruling is specifically so that we can customize our response to the actual ruling and that plan will involve making sure that people have assistance as we transition and give people freedom from ObamaCare. The other answer is, can we replace this law completely in the next presidency, in the next Congress? That is our goal and the answer is, yes, we can.
But here's one reason Ryan may not have wanted to talk about his "comprehensive solution" to ObamaCare. It's a lot like ObamaCare only more expensive.
Watch Ryan dodge and weave below, from today's Fox News Sunday.
You’re absolutely right that they thumbed their noses at their own plan – because Obama proposed it. Had George W. Bush proposed the identical plan, they would have backed it a thousandfold.
Their actual agenda since January 2009 has been pretty simple – say no to everything that Obama and the Dems say or do. Nothing complicated about that. Just say no. Throw up roadblocks. Refuse to behave in a civilized fashion. Deny even a modicum of civility, while at the same time projecting the GOP’s issues of rage and impotence on the Dems. It’s frankly the display that many on the left were hoping they would see from the Dems when George W. Bush was in office. The difference being that the Dems always try to get along and the GOP has never had such an intention.
Venues like Fox News have sadly made even the tiniest steps toward bipartisanship almost completely impossible today. No GOP politician dares cross the aisle for fear of being primaried or pilloried on the TV and radio. It’s a truly sad state of affairs.
So, the GOPers basically turned up their noses to THEIR OWN PLAN, simply because the Kenyan Marxist Socialist Muslim proposed it. (Incidentally, that was just one more point that proved Obama was never the great liberal, leftist Messiah that MoveOn.org and similar left-leaning organizations were selling in 2007/8. Again, their whole support for Obama was based on something that Obama never had to defend politically—a vote on the military authorization bill to attack Iraq. Sure, he took the strong position of being “against the war” from the start, but he was doing so as a legislator from the State of Illinois. He cast a symbolic vote in the Legislature opposing the war, but a vote which didn’t have any real stake in the end. Once elected to the US Senate, his positions on virtually everything, except women’s issues, were identical to Hillary’s. He even pointedly made a statement supporting the war, to the effect, since the President had committed us, we should support the troops—a stance that Hillary also held. But I digress…….)
It’s frankly been comical to watch the GOP continue to spin about this law – it’s as if their entire reason for existence was to kill it. And all because they dislike this President that intensely. I just wonder how the political atmosphere will be for the next President of each party – are we simply establishing a pattern where the GOP works to immediately repeal everything they don’t like from the prior administration, regardless of the cost?
