One key bit is that Rubio would limit the tax-free status of health insurance bought through employers. There are nearly 150 million people on those plans now. They would eventually have to pay taxes on some of that income unless they buy a plan cheap enough to be covered entirely by Rubio’s new individual health tax credits.

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Rubiocare has similarities with many other health care plans proposed by Republicans in recent years that have never actually made it to the floor for a vote. And while lacking in details, Rubio’s proposal shares some similarities with a tax-credit plan outlined by Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin — though Walker’s plan doesn’t mention shrinking the employer break.

One political problem is that people tend to prefer their current, often generous employer-provided plans and want to keep them. (That is, after all, why President Barack Obama made that flawed “if you like it you can keep it” promise.)

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There are lots of reasons to prefer the Rubio approach. Employees would have far more choices, rather than being stuck with the plans chosen by their company. There would arguably be more competition — and many economists have argued the employer tax credit has incentivized high-cost health care. (That includes key Obamacare adviser Jonathan Gruber, who has touted the so-called Cadillac tax set to take effect in 2018 as a way to also squeeze the employer health exclusion.)