Where Is the GOP Alternative to Obamacare?

Posted: February 3rd, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: politics

Earlier today I tweeted the following:

GOP wants to repeal new health care law, which is fine, but what are they going to replace it with? Still have not heard any GOP plan.

The reason why this is important, is because of people like Hillary St. Pierre:

With a court decision on Monday declaring the health care law unconstitutional and Republicans intent on repealing at least parts of it, thousands of Americans with major illnesses are facing the renewed prospect of losing their health insurance coverage…Hillary St. Pierre, a 28-year-old former registered nurse who has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, had expected to reach her insurance plan’s $2 million limit this year. Under the new law, the cap was eliminated when the policy she gets through her husband’s employer was renewed this year. Ms. St. Pierre, who has already come close once before to losing her coverage because she had reached the plan’s maximum, says she does not know what she will do if the cap is reinstated. “I will be forced to stop treatment or to alter my treatment,” Ms. St. Pierre, who lives in Charlestown, N.H., with her husband and son, said in an e-mail.

(Via Ezra Klein)

Republicans may genuinely want to repeal the new health care law on policy grounds, and not to hurt President Obama’s reelection chances (which is the more likely scenario considering the GOP leader in the Senate said that their “top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office.”). Before wasting their time with repeal, the Republicans must come up with an alternative to help people like Ms. St. Pierre.

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