Boehner predicted it in Feb. 2017: "Republicans will never pass a good Obamacare-replacement."

[DetlefK]

http://www.salon.com/2017/06/28/why-is-the-gop-so-terrible-at-health-care-so-many-reasons-but-largely-because-they-dont-understand-political-reality/

“In the 25 years that I served in the United States Congress, Republicans never, ever, one time agreed on what a health care proposal should look like. Not once,” Boehner told attendees, according to a report by Politico’s Darius Tahir.

Boehner continued, recounting that he had advised his former colleagues not to waste their time with bills that would merely repeal Obamacare without implementing some sort of alternative system.

“All this happy talk that went on in November and December and January about repeal, repeal, repeal,” Boehner said. “If you pass repeal without replace you’ll never pass replace, because they will never, ever agree on what the bill should be. Perfect always becomes the enemy of the good.”

Instead of repealing Obamacare, Boehner argued, Republicans should make smaller tweaks around its edges, eliminating some of the most unpopular aspects.

In that scenario, the former GOP leader said, Republicans would basically “fix the flaws of the existing law and put a more conservative box around it.”

[SummerSnow]

1. He would never had said that if he was still speaker of the house.

When he was Speaker he said repeal and replace constantly. At least he is admitting the repubs are a bunch of bs-ers

[unblock]

3. most of the time it was just "repeal".

early on, they could have just repealed it, but that time has passed.

[unblock]

2. i've been saying this for ages. obamacare, or something like it, *is* the closest thing

to a republican solution. the market/mandate concept was developed at the heritage foundation as a conservative/free-market alternative to hillarycare or medicare-for-all.

obama put them in a political bind when he triangulated and used "their" plan. of course, he made it more progressive, particularly with the taxes almost exclusively on the rich and the subsidies for the poor.

the "problems" from the republican perspective are
1) it's got obama's name on it
2) the tax/subsidies structure is progressive and
3) they railed against the "mandate" so much they have to get rid of it.
4) republican governors have been sabotaging it

the solution is pretty simple:
a) "repeal" obamacare and "replace" it with trumpcare, which is remarkably similar except for a few changes
b) flatten the taxes. the rich gots to have their tax cuts, so shift the costs to everyone else. cut overall taxes, so they can claim it's not a tax increase and
c) replace the "mandate/penalty" with a "tax/rebate". everyone pays slightly higher taxes, but you get a rebate if you get health insurance. this is mathematically identical, but they can claim they got rid of the dreaded "mandate".
d) now that it's a republican plan, republican governors will go along with it.

pretty simple.

but republicans are so splintered and extreme they'll never agree even on this.

no different enough, doesn't cut taxes for the rich enough, still a big gubmint program, etc.