What are Republicans going to do about Obamacare? No idea.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-do-republicans-say-theyll-do-about-obamacare-no-idea/2017/02/08/5eb5ce4c-ee45-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html?postshare=7011486649127523&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.e91bdaeac3b7

by Dana Milbank

The Obamacare repeal effort was already in unstable condition. Now its status must be downgraded to critical — and completely unserious.

After years of Republican yammering about the urgent need to repeal the Affordable Care Act and months of fruitless pursuit of an alternative, President Trump now says he may not unveil a replacement this year at all. And from Capitol Hill comes new word that Republicans aren’t even talking about a plan.

“To be honest, there’s not any real discussion taking place right now,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters Tuesday at the Capitol. Corker, according to the Huffington Post, said he has “no idea” when Republicans might start drafting an alternative to Obamacare, adding, “I don’t see any congealing around ideas yet.”

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What Republicans don’t seem to have come to terms with is that, as a political matter, they already will be held responsible for whatever happens to health-care markets, even if they don’t introduce a replacement soon. An executive order Trump signed relaxing enforcement of Obamacare, and the constant talk of repeal, have injected a debilitating uncertainty into the health-care market — essentially beginning the unraveling of Obamacare with nothing to replace it.

The executive order Trump signed directed federal agencies to do what they could to “minimize” the burdens of the act by exercising their authority “to waive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay” parts of the law. Insurers have warned that the uncertainty is deterring them from participating in Obamacare. The head of Anthem told Wall Street analysts that he would be deciding about “extracting” his company from health-care exchanges if it doesn’t see stability.

This means that Republicans, while waiting for their alternative to “congeal,” have already set in motion the disintegration of the current health-insurance market. “It’s worse than the dog who caught the car,” said Jesse Ferguson, a strategist advising Democrats on health care. “It’s the dog who somehow is now driving the car.”

That would explain the series of erratic maneuvers we’ve seen from GOP lawmakers lately.

Take Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who in 2011 called Obamacare “the single greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime. It will destroy our health-care system. .?.?. It must be repealed.”

Now Johnson has shed the hysteria. “Let’s start working with Democrats,” he said on CNBC. “Let’s transition to a system that will actually work, that, you know, Democrats are talking about. .?.?. It’s way more complex than simply repeal and replace.”

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Or sooner. Arguably, Republicans already own the instability in the health-care system that their inaction has caused. Now that Trump is talking about delaying a health-care rollout for another year and Republican legislators aren’t even talking about an Obamacare alternative, it’s becoming clear what “Trumpcare” will look like: chaos.