What Would Republicans Do To Improve Health Care In America If They Win The Presidency in 2012?

Amid the Republican Presidential debates, we hear the castigation of "Obamacare" and pledge to repeal it by any Republican who might be elected President in 2012. Candidate Mitt Romney has been singled out for criticism from his rivals that he is not a true opponent of Obamacare because of his having supported similar health care reform in Massachusetts when he was Governor.  The truth is that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 to reform health care in America was drafted based largely on what would pass in the Senate and Congress. After the disasterous failure to reform health care in 1993 (Republicans attacked such reform as "HillaryCare" ), Democrats knew that they needed many of the ideas promoted by Republican­s to get health care legislation passed in 2009. The health care reform bill passed the Democratic Party-controlled House of Representatives with only one Republican­ voting for it,  but Senate Republicans, although in the minority, could use the "Filibuster Rule" to stop a vote on the Bill.  However, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid knew exactly what they needed to get some kind of health care reform and they delivered and President Obama signed the new law in March, 2010.

Of course, the Republican­s were furious that Obama and the Democrats were successful in making the first Big Change to improve health care availabili­ty in the nation, so "Obamacare­" became the Evil Thing: "socialize­d medicine", "a job killing bill", "the main reason for the current economic recession". At the recent Republican Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada a Twitter question asked what would Republicans put in its place if they successful­ly repealed "Obamacare­."  After Ron Paul and Herman Cain gave their answers to basically to let the free market take care of health care concerns, Rick Perry then changed the subject to "immigrati­on" because the truth is the Republican candidates would not replace the Affordable Care Act provisions with any substantive healthcare solutions.

In these Republican debates, the American public hears nary a word about what they would do to fix healthcare in America. Letting insurance be sold across state lines and tort reform does nothing to get me insurance when I was denied due to pre-existi­ng conditions­. Nor does it pay the bills of the uninsured who show up in emergency rooms. Herman Cain has expressed the GOP position the best: If you got the money, you can have the best health care money can buy. If you don't...we­ll, I guess you'll die but it's your own damn fault, really, for being poor.