Politico: Republicans don't even have a pla.

via Meredith Lee hill in Politico:

House GOP erupts over health care as leaders hunt for a plan

House Republican leaders presented no firm plan Tuesday for advancing health care legislation as anxiety rises in the GOP ranks over the impending expiration of key Obamacare subsidies at the end of the year.

Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson presented attendees of a closed-door conference meeting with list of 10 possible policies that could get votes in the coming weeks or months, according to five Republicans in the room.

Some were more specific, such as an expansion of health savings accounts and an overhaul of pharmaceutical benefit manager oversight. Others were vague, including one bullet point that simply said, “Innovation.” The list did not include an extension of the expiring tax credits.

Some later expressed their dismay at how poorly they believe GOP leaders have handled the topic.

“There was a general uneasiness because nothing is coming together,” said a House Republican, one of several granted anonymity to speak candidly about the private meeting.

“We wasted so much time,” one conservative Republican said, also lamenting the lack of a unified GOP plan with just seven session days left in the year.

...“There was no consensus,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said.

For what it's worth, this is literally the slide in question:

A few of these aren't necessarily terrible ideas depending on what Johnson actually has in mind (PBM reform, price transparency), but none of them would actually address the immediate ACA tax credit crisis in any way, shape or form. Having said that...

"Association Health Plans:" From NY Times reporter Robert Pear about why they're a terrible idea:

But these health plans, created for small businesses, have a darker side: They have a long history of fraud and abuse that have left employers and employees with hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills.

The problems are described in dozens of court cases and enforcement actions taken over more than a decade by federal and state officials who regulate the type of plans Mr. Trump is encouraging, known as association health plans.

In many cases, the Labor Department said, it has targeted “unscrupulous promoters who sell the promise of inexpensive health benefit insurance, but default on their obligations.” In several cases, it has found that people managing these health plans diverted premiums to their personal use.

The department filed suit this year against an association health plan for 300 small employers in Washington State, asserting that its officers had mismanaged the plan’s assets and charged employers more than $3 million in excessive “administrative fees.”

...But Mila Kofman, a former insurance superintendent in Maine who has done extensive research on association health plans, said they also often falsely claimed to be exempt from state insurance laws, as a way to explain how they could offer premiums lower than those charged by licensed insurance companies.

...But history shows the risks of an expansion of association health plans. If a plan becomes insolvent, the impact on consumers can be devastating.

...when they went to the doctor, they found out all of a sudden that their insurance company, their perceived insurance company, was in receivership and that they had no coverage.”

...The defendants concealed the plan’s financial problems from plan participants and left more than $3.6 million in unpaid claims, the department said in court papers.

"Cost Sharing Reductions": I don't know exactly what Johnson is talking about, but I'm assuming he's referring to reinstating CSR reimbursement payments to carriers, which is something also included in the Senate's Cassidy/Crapo bill.

If so, it would reduce gross premiums by perhaps ~11% for around 1.6 million enrollees who earn more than 400% FPL...but would also eliminate Silver Loading, which in turn would significantly INCREASE net premiums for nearly all enrollees earning 200 - 400% FPL who choose Bronze, Gold or Platinum plans (currently around 5.7 million moderate-income enrollees).

Sidenote: Assuming they did this along with a clause prohibiting CSR payments for policies which include abortion coverage (which I'm sure they would), it would lead to an even more ironic outcome.

"Codify Trump Rules:" This refers to the Trump CMS's so-called "Affordability & Integrity" Rule put into place last spring, which includes a ton of terrible stuff, including...

• Permanently shortening the ACA Open Enrollment Period from 76 days (11/01 - 1/15) to just 45 days (11/01 - 12/15)
• Screwing over 580,000 DACA recipients by making them ineligible for ACA enrollment
• Eliminating the cap on repayment of excess tax credits if you honestly underestimated your income
• A $5/month minimum premium no matter what which the entire GOP seems obsessed with lately
• Eliminating the Biden Administration's procedure for automatically transferring low-income enrollees into better-value & lower-cost plans as long as doing so doesn't cost them more or disrupt their healthcare provider network
• Prohibiting any sort of gender modification procedure as being considered an essential health benefit
• Changing the Premium Adjustment Percentage (PAPI) formula to make the un-enhanced tax credits even less generous yet & increasing maximum out of pocket costs even more)
• Blurring the ACA metal level Actuarial Value de minimus rules to make the distinctions between Bronze, Silver, Gold & Platinum vaguer & more confusing
• ...and some other stuff

"Innovation"

Um...I've got nothing. Which is appropriate, I guess, since neither do House GOP leaders.

UPDATE: This is too perfect. From Scott Wong, Sahil Kapur and Kyle Stewart at NBC News:

Facing the looming deadline, Republicans are under enormous pressure to vote on a health plan to insulate their party from Democratic attacks over rising health insurance premiums and protect their fragile House and Senate majorities. But there’s little agreement on how to proceed.

“The consensus is we need to come up with something,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, said after a closed-door GOP meeting on the health issue.

UPDATE 2: Ah, but never fear, dear reader: GOP Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is working hard:

Mike Johnson on video of the second September 2 strike: "My admission here is I was not in the Gang of 8 briefing yesterday because we were working on the healthcare stuff."

Good to know he's on top of the "healthcare stuff."