Conservative think tank releases 'post-ObamaCare' health plan

By Elise Viebeck - 12/10/12 01:50 PM ET

A conservative think tank released a plan Monday to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) if opponents succeed in repealing the law.

The 59-page document from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recommends a market-based approach to overhauling health entitlements and reforming insurance regulation if President Obama's healthcare reform law is killed.

"This study aims to fill in the blanks for many ACA opponents who promise to replace it but do not take the next step: telling Americans how they would do so in a credible and convincing manner," the report states.

AEI recommends converting Medicare to a premium-support system and block-granting Medicaid, both strategies that have been proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

"A safe, effective and sustainable cure for the after-effects of ObamaCare must deal with a number of key issues," the report states. "They boil down to providing better incentives and information resources to help us live within our financial means while improving our health.

"Well-functioning markets and private choices can handle these tasks effectively and nimbly," the report continues.

The report assumes that efforts to fully repeal the healthcare law will be viable after Obama leaves office in four years.

Study author Thomas Miller argues that the massive task of implementing the law could prove too much for health officials.

He also points to public opinion polls that reveal antipathy toward some of the law's provisions, laying the groundwork for another repeal campaign.

"Support for either partial or full repeal and replacement of portions of the ACA remained strong as of early November 2012," Miller writes, citing exit polls. "Twenty-four percent of voters wanted to repeal some of the law and 25 percent wanted to repeal all of it (a combined near-majority of 49 percent), whereas 26 percent of voters wanted the law expanded and 18 percent wanted it left as is."

The political right has opposed healthcare reform since it passed in 2010.

Opponents of the law hoped that a number of moves — House-backed bills, the Supreme Court's decision, the November elections — would thwart the law, but those hopes were largely dashed when President Obama retook the White House.

Read the report here.