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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Wednesday that he would introduce a bill to repeal Obamacare and replace it with his own set of reforms.

It appears to be the first comprehensive health care reform legislation that McCain has introduced during his three decades in Congress. It is composed of conservative pet policies, such as tax credits for individuals and tort reform to stem medical malpractice lawsuits. The bill comes as Republicans attempt to beat back criticism that they don't have a viable alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

McCain boasted that Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum and the chief economic advisor to his 2008 presidential campaign, had concluded that the bill would save taxpayers $2.37 trillion in its first decade.

A formal bill has not yet been filed, but McCain offered a description on the Senate floor and said it would be a companion to a bill introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) in the House. The central tenet, tax credits for purchasing health coverage, was also included in McCain's 2008 presidential platform.

His full description is below (preliminary transcript):

"This legislation that I'm introducing today makes the purchase of health care financially feasible for all Americans," McCain said. "From deductions, to advanced refundable credits so that everyone has an economic incentive to purchase coverage they want for themselves and their families, not what the government forces them to buy."

"In addition it allows greater choices in portability, so every health policy is owned by the patient regardless of who pays. This means the coverage would go with the person if they change or lose their job, it gives employers more flexibility in the benefits offered and provides many more coverage options for people with preexisting conditions so that no one is priced out of the market regardless of health status."

"It addresses increasing costs by clamping down on abusive lawsuits, ends the practice of defensive medicine, gains significant savings from health care efficiencies, sifting out waste, fraud, and abuse and bringing our nation's budget under control," McCain continued.

"Finally, it establishes doctor-led quality measures ensuring that patients receive quality care defined by people that know medicine, not by government. It encourages healthier lifestyles by giving employers and health policies more flexibility to offer discounts for healthy habits, wellness and prevention programs." http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mccain-obamacare-replacement-bil
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The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Indiana, reports on a fascinating exchange between GOP Rep. Marlin Stutzman and a local meat market owner, Lee Albright, who likes the Affordable Care Act and quizzed the Congressman about the real world implications of the GOP repeal stance:

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Albright doesn’t want the Affordable Care Act repealed, which Stutzman and the Republican-controlled House have voted to do numerous times. Albright told his congressman that his monthly payment for family health coverage will drop from $3,800 to $1,700 by enrolling in a plan offered through the much-maligned law.

Albright said most of his dozen employees also are enrolling in Affordable Care Act plans and will have coverage for the first time. “If the Republican Party thinks they’re going to kill Obamacare, you guys need to realize that those nine people that I add on, are they going to vote Republican ever again if you take their health care from them?”

Stutzman responded: “No, probably not.”

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The Republican seems to be implicitly conceding not only that the GOP repeal stance is politically problematic, but also that the Republican position constitutes taking health coverage away from people. The episode nicely illustrates the broader problems with the repeal stance, i.e., that the de facto GOP position right now is to return to the old system, and that this isn’t a palatable alternative.

Indeed, at the same town hall, the Congressman also conceded to constituents there are “several” alternative plans being debated internally among Republicans, and that in 2014, Republicans might introduce something. But as Steve Benen notes, offering an alternative will invite comparisons between it and Obamacare on how many people it would cover and which one offers better consumer protections:

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Ultimately, that’s the “trap” GOP officials need to be mindful of. On the one hand, they can continue to offer nothing in the way of an alternative, effectively telling the public they’re not serious about the issue and they prefer to take cheap shots rather than govern. On the other, they can build a consensus around an Obamacare alternative that almost certainly won’t be nearly as good as the ACA. (Remember, the basic framework of the Affordable Care Act was the Republican policy up until a few years ago.)

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Even some Obamacare foes have admitted Republicans probably won’t offer any alternative, because it would then be subjected to political attacks. And as Byron York has reported, it’s not clear there is any GOP consensus alternative. York, too, posited that Republicans could find themselves in an “Obamacare Trap,” as repeal grows less realistic and forces them to pay lip service to fixing the law, legitimizing it. But Republicans who have edged away from repeal have gotten smacked down by the right.

But it’s sinking in with the D.C. press corps that right now, it’s obvious that the GOP repeal stance is also problematic. The state parties are also pushing hard on the local level on the idea that repeal represents returning to the old system, potentially harming millions.

If enrollment piles up and the law works okay, the GOP repeal stance could get less tenable over time, and you could see more exchanges like the one above with Rep. Stutzman. But at a certain point, Obamacare may simply fade from the headlines. Since the demand for total repeal is the basis for the GOP’s entire 2014 strategy, it’s unclear what would happen then. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/12/18/the-gop-re
peal-trap/?hpid=z4

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