The Huffington Post’s Jeffrey Young and Jonathan Cohn declare that “putting together a real Obamacare alternative will take more time — and more genuine interest — than Republicans have.” In truth, such Obamacare alternatives are already available to Republicans. These include the 2017 Project’s “Winning Alternative to Obamacare,” which helped Ed Gillespie almost pull off a huge upset victory in last year’s Virginia Senate race, and the newly released Burr-Hatch-Upton alternative, an updated version of last year’s Burr-Coburn-Hatch proposal.
Young and Cohn criticize the Burr-Hatch-Upton proposal (advanced by Senators Orrin Hatch and Richard Burr and House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton) in a variety of ways, but I want to focus on just one. Echoing other liberal writers, they assert, “Relative to Obamacare, the Republican proposal would provide financial assistance to fewer people and cut off aid at a lower income level.” While this critique highlights a political downside to offering income-tested tax credits — rather than offering tax credits to everyone in the individual market and thereby fixing the longstanding inequality in the tax code (between employer-based and individual-market insurance) — Young and Cohn aren’t painting an accurate picture. In fact, their statement makes one wonder whether they really understand how Obamacare works.
