JUST IN TIME!!

For nearly 7 years now (starting well before the Affordable Care Act was even voted on, much less passed or signed into law), the Republican Party has been promising their own comprehensive plan to replace it.

Huffington Post healthcare reporter Jeffrey Young has spent that time documenting (nearly) every instance of the GOP promising that they'll be coming out with their own full-blown "Obamacare Replacement Plan" annnnnnnny day now. His Storify documentation now stands at 98 entries by my count. when he hits 100, he wins a free set of steak knives.

Here's the latest, courtesy of Steve Benen of The MaddowBlog:

One of the best running jokes in American politics is the one about Republicans releasing their own alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Any day now, GOP leaders have been saying for many years, they’re going to have a plan that rivals “Obamacare,” and it’s going to be awesome.

Yesterday, The Hill reported on the latest installment in this ongoing fiasco.

A group of senior House Republicans is promising to deliver proof that the party is making headway in its six-year struggle to replace ObamaCare.

“Give us a little time, another month or so,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told reporters this week. “I think we’ll be pretty close to a Republican alternative.”

Upton is not just some random figure in the broader effort: The Michigan Republican is a key committee chairman and a member of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “task force,” responsible for coming up with the GOP’s reform alternative.

Upton said the Republican group is currently in “listening mode” – which it’s apparently been in since its creation 14 months ago.

And yet, we’re apparently supposed to believe that in “another month or so,” House Republican lawmakers will be “pretty close” to having their own reform plan.

Who knows, maybe the GOP is making enormous strides towards its goal. Maybe “listening mode” is going so well that the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act is nearly complete. Maybe, with “a little time,” they’re ready to deliver.

Yeah...no, probably not so much.