WI Gov. Scott Walker Talks of Repealing Obamacare While In Minnesota

This week, another GOP contender for president released a plan for replacing Obamacare – demonstrating again that yes, there are Republican alternatives.

Wisconsin Governor and GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker. Gov. Walker’s plan does not mention any changes in Medicare.

But Walker said his plan will repeal all of Obamacare’s $1 trillion in new taxes. Rye said that the removal of the mandate to buy insurance “obviously” would reduce the number of people who do so. Walker’s plan leaves aside Medicare for consideration in a separate proposal.

Rubio’s plan is similar in its approach to Walker’s. Rubio sketched out in an op-ed piece in Politico on Monday. In addition, Walker does not say whether his credits would be indexed for medical inflation.

He’s absolutely right that reforms based on the free market will do far better than Barack Obama’s centralized control, and objections about the cost of his plan should take into account removing the massive economic and tax burden of ObamaCare. The Walker plan has some verbiage about “reforming Medicaid’ which Roy interprets as cutting spending on that program”.

Walker says he’s exhausted of hearing talk in Washington about repealing Obamacare but no actual plan to get it done.

Jindal is furious with this aspect of Walker’s healthcare plan, saying his 2016 rival just endorsed the “underpinning” of Obamacare and creates a “cradle to grave” entitlement program. He dubbed it “Obamacare lite”.

But even if he gets to the White House, the AP notes he would face a battle repealing the ACA, given it would require 60 votes in the now Democrat-controlled Senate. The credits could be used to purchase insurance on the open market, and the value would be based exclusively on consumers’ age.

My plan will restore the full freedom to choose your own health care to the American people. So they may not help low- to moderate-income people as much as the existing tax breaks do. Critics noted that eliminating the ACA taxes would deprive the government of hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue used to finance coverage expansion. It would only bar pre-existing conditions for Americans who have continuous coverage – who never have a lapse between their plans. He writes that “my plan would make it easier for states to expand those pools”. The credits would increase from $900 for those up to age 17 to $3,000 for those 50-64.

The Wisconsin governor provided details of his proposal to The Associated Press in advance of a Tuesday speech in suburban Minneapolis where he was to outline his first major policy initiative of the presidential campaign. “It’s going to be massively, massively less expensive than the ACA”, he said.

Specifics from the Journal: Walker would provide tax credits to everyone without employer-sponsored health coverage. But there aren’t any protections mentioned for people who do drop coverage at some point. But under his plan, subsidies would be linked to age rather than income. His proposal would let states experiment with malpractice reform, already allowed under the federal health law, she said.

Johnson reported from Brooklyn Center. It would gradually phase out (over ten years) the tax preference for employer-paid health-insurance premiums in favor of a universal tax credit that would be made available to all Americans, whether or not they have access to a job-based option. “We need to protect it – not repeal it”.