Repeal and "Restore".

• Position: POLITICAL LANDSCAPE - Obamacare

Congress should take a vote on simply repealing ObamaCare. Republicans should be forced to go on the record to show how they keep--or renege on--their campaign promises. Just in case it should pass (very funny, no?), Democrats and Republicans should be working on a series of "restore" bills to debate, one issue at a time, immediately after repeal. Members would have a chance to advocate for any parts of ObamaCare that they favor. However, the actual effects of the provisions should be named, instead of the purported good intentions. It is time to look at the nuts and bolts, not CBO guesstimates of enrollee counts.

Judging by the objections that have been raised to repeal, the American Medical Association and others ought to be in favor of many of the following:

Keep insurance unaffordable. Reenact Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provisions that outlaw catastrophic coverage and require a long list of benefits and guaranteed issue/community rating. Reenact the tax on insurers that was suspended for this year.

Restrict access to care. Reenact restrictions on physician-owned hospitals or other entities that compete with big hospital chains. Continue requirements on insurers that allow them to keep their costs down only by narrow networks, nonremunerative fees, or other measures that limit availability. Reenact the Independent Payment Advisory Board so it can limit services that can be paid for, and thus cap Medicare expenditures as Baby Boomers flood the system.

Protect the managed-care cash cow (Medicaid). Continue without limit the huge Federal subsidies to the Medicaid expansion states so they can continue to pour money into plans that keep childless, able-bodied adults on the welfare rolls without necessarily providing any medical care. This protects the program from the fiscal restraints imposed by states' inability to print money.

Tax the sick and the rich. Reenact all the taxes on medical devices, tanning salons, etc. This will help keep care unaffordable and limit availability. Also reenact the "Cadillac tax" on overly generous insurance benefits, and the added taxes on "rich" people. They are popular with the nonrich, and since they are not indexed to inflation, they will help extract revenue from more and more people as time goes on.

Tax the healthy, the young, and the responsible. Continue guaranteed issue/community rating so that the costs of older, unhealthy people who do not buy insurance until they "need" it can be...