Sunday, December 4, 2016

What comes after Obamacare? Time for Republicans to deliver

The Republicans who won the White House and maintained control of Congress have campaigned on a firm — if woefully fuzzy — promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
If that is what they really plan to do, now is the time to start getting as specific, and as realistic, as they can about the details. The physical and financial health of millions of Americans, and the ability of the entire health care system to serve them, hangs in the balance.
President-elect Donald Trump has called the ACA, known to friend and foe alike as Obamacare, a disaster, even as he has promised that, "Nobody's going to be dying on the street if I'm president."
But, no matter who is president, the excruciatingly complex details of a future version of American health care will be worked out in Congress.
By senators and representatives who may soon realize that they don't want to be responsible for millions of Americans who had health coverage under President Obama to lose it under President Trump. By Utahns such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who now lacks the excuse of having a Democrat in the White House to veto whatever ACA alternative he might come up with.
The means to solving this problem are many. The metrics of success are two:


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