JUST IN TIME!! (no, really...well, sort of, anyway...)

From Peter Sullivan of The Hill:

The conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) on Friday submitted its recommendations for a Republican replacement for ObamaCare as it seeks to shape a plan being formed by a group of House chairmen. 

The recommendations come from the RSC’s already-existing legislation, the American Health Care Reform Act, which would completely repeal ObamaCare and replace it with a new system. 

AT LAST!! A completely new "system"! Let's take a look:

The proposal would replace ObamaCare’s refundable tax credits with a tax deduction, which tends to provide less help to low-income people by reducing the taxes people owe rather than allowing for the possibility of getting money back in a refund. 

Ah, yes...because "less help" is exactly what low income people need most these days. Go on...

The law would undo ObamaCare’s provision that bars insurance companies from refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions and instead set up a system of high-risk pools for them. 

In other words...go back to cherry-picking healthy people while kicking people with diabetes, cancer and other ailments to the curb...just like the Good Old Days! And what about those high risk pools?

In fact, the risk pools are suggested as a viable alternative to the ACA's ban on preexisting condition exclusions in the individual market and the marketplaces. My recent analysis of high-risk pools, however, explains why these entities simply are not a realistic alternative to coverage requirements under the ACA. In a nutshell, high-risk pools:

• are prohibitively expensive to administer,
• are prohibitively expensive for consumers to purchase, and
• offer much less than optimal coverage, often with annual and lifetime limits, coverage gaps, and very high premiums and deductibles.

Getting back to The Hill article...

By repealing ObamaCare, the measure would also undo the law’s expansion of Medicaid, which has provided much of the coverage gains that have led to an estimated 20 million people gaining insurance from ObamaCare. 

...The plan would create block grants to states for Medicaid funds, which many Democrats say would limit funding for the program and lead to cuts in benefits. 

And why is that? Well, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation....

Democrats and Republicans agree that turning Medicaid, which in fiscal 2009 cost state and federal governments $366 billion, into a block grant would fundamentally alter the program.

Because Medicaid is an entitlement program, everyone who is eligible is guaranteed a spot. The federal government, which pays for nearly 60 percent of the cost, has an open-ended commitment to help states cover costs; in return, it requires them to cover certain groups of people and to provide specific benefits. For example, children, pregnant women who meet specific income criteria and parents with dependent children must be covered.

A block grant would effectively end this open-ended approach and provide states with annual lump sums. States would be freer to run the program as they wanted. But states would also be responsible for covering costs beyond the federal allotment.

Yeah, because states like Texas have such a stellar record of looking out for the poor, disabled and elderly.

In other words, after 6 years, the Republican Party has come up with...exactly the same warmed-over gruel they've been shoveling down the media's throats all along. I'll pass, thanks.