[jeffkrol]

stupidity at its finest...................

Obamacare: GOP moves to repeal, and then what?
Our view: Symbolic vote to dump court-approved health care reform an exercise in futility that only underscores GOP's failure to produce a reasonable alternative
July 11, 2012

Next time the more bombastic in Washington rail against government waste, let them include every cent lost to Wednesday's dog and pony show in the House of Representatives, where time that might have been used constructively was frittered away with yet another attack on health care reform.

For those who might have accidentally tuned into C-Span shortly before 1:30 p.m., that was not a repeat but an actual live telecast. For the 33rd time since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, the House held a vote to repeal part or all of it.

House foolish to vote against health care reform - Baltimore Sun

It was also somewhat doubtful that Republicans ever wanted to do something serious about replacing the ACA or insuring the tens of millions of Americans who currently lack coverage because they either can't afford it or can't qualify for it. Even in past attempts at repeal, the so-called "replacement" initiatives were sketchy at best.

Whatever one might think of tort reform, for instance, limiting damages in malpractice lawsuits isn't going to suddenly make health insurance affordable. Same with expanded health care savings accounts or deregulating insurance companies or many of the other ideas conservatives like to kick around from time to time.

The real reason Republicans dropped all efforts to replace Obamacare with their own ideas is that they know such proposals wouldn't bear up to close scrutiny by independent analysts. Their choice was to either keep the proposals so vague as to be difficult to measure or drop them entirely. This time, the latter course must have simply seemed easier.