J.D. Kleinke says what a lot of us have been saying all along: That the real objection to "Obamacare" in most quarters is that it's Obama's. Apart from that, it's the kind of thing that Republicans would have come up with to fix the Health Care Crisis — and in many ways, did. But, you know, if Barack Hussein Obama had come out in favor of petting kittens, a lot of Conservatives would have knee-jerk denounced it as a Socialist practice that would enshrine Shariah Law in the U.S. and spelled the end of America as we know it.
As near as I can tell, Republicans have no viable Plan B, no idea that fixes what Obamacare fixes and can be installed in its stead. They have a few vague ideas like Insurance Exchanges that operate on the premise that if you increase competition amongst insurance companies, the magic hand of the Free Market will make fees go down. It hasn't when those insurers compete to sell employer-based health insurance plans so there's no reason to think it might for other packages. Basically, there's a limit to how much insurers can lower premiums when they're all paying the same skyrocketing costs of hospital rooms, prescriptions, equipment, etc. The kind of plan Paul Ryan has been touting doesn't even attempt to lower those costs and also offers no reason for any company to make affordable care available to the folks who now cannot get it.
When you hear Mitt Romney fall back on the old "sick people can go to Emergency Rooms," you know he has no idea what to do about Health Care. Well, actually, he does. It's the same idea he instigated in Massachusetts…the same idea he touted there. But since it's now called Obamacare, he has to vow to repeal it and harm the people whose lives would be made better and even saved by it. If he does win, that's what he'll do…and then he and other Republicans will have to find a way to sneak it back into play with enough camouflage that they can call it National Romneycare or RepublicanCare or something.