They don’t need a breakthrough. The fact is, Republicans have offered a number of plans with varying levels of free-market reforms, but Americans aren’t in the mood for another wide-ranging effort from Washington. There’s almost no chance of Congress coming together on a set of ideas anyway. There’s even less of a chance that Congress can accomplish anything on the issue while Barack Obama is still president, anyway.
But even if they could create some consensus, the argument for deregulating ObamaCare is far more powerful than trying to sell “means-tested tax credits” —and another few dozen compelling ideas—at the same time. What’s more important is freeing states and allowing them to implement these ideas when possible on their own. If Vermont’s experiment with single-payer reform crashes and burns, it won’t take the entire country with it. Republicans may have some terrible ideas, as well. Let’s see how they work elsewhere.
ObamaCare may well survive King v. Burwell, the legal challenge that could sink ACA by forcing the administration to follow the law and cut subsidies from government “marketplaces” in states that didn’t surrender to White House inducements. Only 13 states have their own marketplaces. If it doesn’t, though, Republicans will have a glorious chance to deregulate and open up markets. You know, fix our broken health care system. If not Burwell, they’ll have other shots at it. The chance of ObamaCare’s popularity growing over the next few years is slim. Most of the painful taxes were designed to be implemented during Obama’s second term, once the law had already turned into a giant welfare program that would be almost impossible to dislodge. (That’s what they mean when they say “it’s working.”)
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