Republicans unveil long-shot effort on health care reform

WASHINGTON — Senators on Wednesday rolled out competing plans for the nation’s health care system, with a group of GOP senators making a last, longshot effort to undo Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders proposing universal governmentrun coverage.

Despite opposition and little time, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., proposed legislation that would do away with many of the subsidies and mandates of the 2010 law and instead would provide block grants to the states to help individuals pay for health coverage.

“If you believe repealing and replacing Obamacare is a good idea, this is your best and only chance to make it happen because everything else has failed except this approach,” Graham told reporters.

The senators said that some states would get more money to provide health care than they get through the current system. They are modeling their effort after the welfare reform legislation passed under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, was unveiling legislation that would allow Americans to get health coverage simply by showing a new government-issued card. Consumers also would no longer owe out-of-pocket expenses like deductibles.

But Sanders’ description of his measure omitted specifics about how much it would cost and final decisions about how he would pay for it.