Originally Posted by guy44

Nope. The Republicans barely have a plan, but what anyone can decipher from it is that they want to give people money (that otherwise would have been spent by their employers on health care) to spend themselves on health care. This is a terrible, horrible, miserable idea. There are tremendous advantages to size - large employers negotiate huge discounts on health care, while the government does even better - and forcing people to negotiate individually would be a tremendous disaster. This would mean an end to the employer-based health care system entirely.

The Democratic plan keeps things mostly in place. You will still probably get your insurance through your employer. There will be new rules (no rescission, no preexisting conditions, community rating), new competition (the health care exchange, maybe regulation about the number of insurers offering health care within a state), and maybe a public option that is exactly like a private health insurance plan except run by the government.

These are very different ideas, and I don't think there are 5 health care experts anywhere who think the GOP plan (to the extent it exists) is tolerable.