"A"CA repeal & replace: the time for forward movement is now

Now that the new era - and all that that implies - is a done deal, your Facebook feed is no doubt clogged, like mine, with the wails and moans and cornered-animal snarls of those offering dystopian scenarios of chaos and misery because, it is claimed, the Republicans have no plan to put something in place of the "A"CA once it is jettisoned.

It is an inaccurate picture of reality:

Senator Rand Paul offered his more libertarian approach on Wednesday, featuring a reliance on free-market innovation in coverage rather than mandates, interstate sales of policies, and broaden access to HSAs. His colleagues Bill Cassidy and Susan Collins offered a significantly different approach – giving each state the option to set up its own version of Obamacare, or choose a “free-market alternative.”

That approach still keeps in place some of the community-rating mandates while eliminating some of the other mandates on coverage, which makes it look like a bad system that has only been transferred to another level of government. Paul Ryan still has his “A Better Way” in the House, while Price will continue to work off his repeatedly offered legislation that closely resembles Ryan’s plan.

Some may see this multitude of options as evidence of chaos and division. Instead, it’s part of the necessary process of working through all the options to get to a consensus solution, one that may well include various parts of all these approaches. Until Republicans gained control of Congress and the White House and replacement became a real possibility, few were willing to do this work and risk the potential political backlash. Now, with not just the possibility but necessity of replacing a collapsing and failing experiment in a command economy, this work can begin in earnest. 

So it would be possible for the howling leftists to take a chill pill on this, were they not driven by their time-worn agenda of trying to make Republicans look heartless.

But, as Ed Morrissey points out at the linked piece, Pubs must forge ahead without pause. Dithering is fatal in this new landscape.