In the News

RSC WANTS TRUMP’S ‘PARTY OF HEALTHCARE’ TITLE: The conservative Republican Study Committee has released a healthcare plan, charging into a fraught political battle over how to overhaul America’s health insurance system.

The details of the plan, outlined Tuesday in a 60-page document titled “A Framework for Personalized, Affordable Care,” are similar to what Republicans tried before. The plan lets states set up high risk pools, repackages the funding for subsidies and Medicaid expansion so states can decide how to make coverage less expensive to lower-income people, and expands health savings accounts so people can have the same plan going from one job to the next.

Coming out with a plan is a surprising political strategy. Democrats took the House in 2018 not by campaigning on improving the healthcare system, but by attacking Republicans over their efforts to repeal Obamacare’s specific scaffolding for pre-existing conditions. Rather than release a plan at all, Republicans could lean on attacking Democrats over their plans to abolish private health insurance through “Medicare for all.”

“They know it’s a field full of political landmines,” RSC Chairman Rep. Mike Johnson said of the 147-member group releasing a proposal. “But we're willing to take those risks because we believe it's the right thing to do. We think we have a responsibility to put ideas on the table and begin this debate.”

The plan can’t move ahead with a Democrat-controlled House. So the ideas are there to develop a framework ahead of 2020, and Johnson expects some debate even among Republicans. He and Roger Marshall, who chairs the RSC healthcare task force, see their plan not only as a potential replacement if the courts were to invalidate Obamacare, but want to use it as a foil against “Medicare for all.” They think it can help them win the House majority.

“This will be the defining issue of the 2020 election,” Marshall said. “Do you want a president who wants to have the government take over your healthcare, or do you want personal choices?”

They’ll be more vocal about attacking Obamacare, too. The RSC document delves into the difficulties middle-class people face in affording Obamacare plans, making the pre-existing protections moot to those people because many of them choose to go uninsured. This type of argument, of raising the “victims” of Obamacare, was common before the repeal and replace efforts but disappeared during the 2018 midterms as Republicans played defense.

Republicans are planning to put out a second piece of the plan and have been working on their ideas all year. Johnson described the plan as a “complement” to White House efforts. Marshall said when he met with President Trump a few months ago, the president said: “Wait a second, Roger — whatever you do, take care of pre-existing conditions.”

Marshall said this was his biggest concern, too. “I woke up and went to sleep for the past four years trying to figure out how to fix pre-existing conditions,” he said.

But Democrats are sure to attack Republicans over the protections. While Republicans insist they are protecting pre-existing conditions by extending rules that don’t allow insurers to turn away the sick, they also let states decide how extensive coverage must be and expand health sharing ministries, which aren’t guaranteed to cover medical needs. The plan would further expand association health plans, where people band together to get coverage to have the same leverage as big companies, but they have a history of insolvency.