GOP's Health Plan Should Be More Ambitious, Not Less

Health care continues to vex Republicans, with the demands of conservatives, moderates, the Senate parliamentarian and the public at large seemingly incapable of being reconciled. Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist for the New York Times, thinks he has found a way out. He counsels Republicans to think small.

The “timid” bill he recommends would have four parts. It would 1) repeal the fines on people who go without insurance, and in its place impose a waiting period if those people try to return to the insurance rolls; 2) repeal some of Obamacare’s taxes, such as those on medical devices, but not all of them; 3) “maintain the stabilization funds that the Senate legislation pays to states and insurers to help cover the sickest Americans and keep exchange prices from spiraling upward”; and 4) put a per-person cap on Medicaid spending, but a less “draconian” one than the one in the Senate bill.