Sen. Orrin Hatch cribs from Obamacare, again, for his 'replacement' plan

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has already developed an Obamacare "replacement" plan that replaces the individual mandate with, well, a mandate. Now Hatch has another brilliant idea: replace the tax credits people get which subsidizes the purchase of insurance on the exchange with—tax credits!

Two front-running Republican options at an early stage in Congress include a refundable tax credit that experts say is virtually the same thing as the Obamacare tax subsidy being challenged before the Supreme Court. Republicans deny that their ideas are tantamount to "Obamacare Lite" but acknowledge they will need bipartisan support for their plans to stand any chance of avoiding an Obama veto.

"It's not going to be like Obamacare, in my opinion," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, whose plan includes a refundable tax credit for low-and middle-income Americans.

"It's not a literal subsidy, it's a recognition that they should have this credit."

Oh, okay. This tax subsidy isn't "literally" a subsidy, it's a credit. Never mind that Stuart Butler, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, says the refundable credits are "essentially indistinguishable" from the Obamacare subsidies. Hatch insists that they're totally not the same, so there you go.

This "new idea" from Hatch couldn't possibly be a reflection of the fact that the last Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 79 percent of people support the subsidies in Obamacare, could it? Surely that's just a coincidence, as is the fact that Hatch, all on his own, came up with an idea that is essentially identical to the one in the hated Obamacare. This is becoming a pattern.

from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/1F7FqDx