Scott Walker offers Obamacare alternative as he tries to regain footing in GOP race

Source: Los Angeles Times

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker rebuked both Obamacare and the Republicans who have failed to repeal it in a speech Tuesday that was intended to recharge his campaign and attract some of the anti-establishment wave that has helped Donald Trump overshadow him and other rivals.

Walker’s proposal to repeal and replace President Obama’s health law hews to general conservative ideas for expanding health coverage with block grants to states and a simplified system of government aid to Americans to buy insurance.
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But the plan is missing many key details, including specifics on how he would pay for it. Any healthcare law that offers subsidies to tens of millions of Americans for health coverage, as Walker proposes to do, likely would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Walker said it was “cost neutral” because of changes he would make to tax rules on high-end insurance plans and savings from turning Medicaid into a block-grant program for states.

For Walker, Tuesday’s speech, at a Minnesota factory where he stood beside an American flag, wooden boxes and a screen with plan highlights, was an attempt to reestablish himself as a top contender for the nomination by returning to a theme that has energized core Republicans in recent elections. He also used the moment to cast himself as a party outsider, a modification of his prior emphasis on the fights he had with public labor unions when he stripped them of many of their collective bargaining rights.

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Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-walker-healthcare-20150818-story.html