Is it a trap? Conservatives split on 'keep your plan' Obamacare fix

As more and more Americans are being dumped from their existing health insurance plans in contradiction to President Obama's now infamous promise, House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., is working on a  temporary fix. Upton's bill would enable millions of Americans to keep their current health insurance plans for the next year by allowing insurers to continue offering plans Obamacare otherwise wouldn't allow.

But while it could bring some (temporary) relief not everyone is on board.

Over at Red State, Erick Erickson warns...

(Image: Know Your Meme)

The House, with the help of a good number of Democrats, will pass the Upton plan and send it to the Senate. Harry Reid will substitute the Landrieu plan and send it back to the House. The House will be forced to either vote for the Landrieu plan or be characterized as siding with insurance companies against people.

In one fell swoop, the Democrats will have the GOP on record saving Mary Landrieu’s re-election in Louisiana by casting her as the one who saved Americans’ health care plans, and also getting on record as really being in favor of fixing Obamacare with the use of mandates.

In truth, Obamacare is not fixable. The only solution is to fully repeal it. The Republicans should not be helping Democrats with their re-election plans, which is all the are doing with Upton/Landrieu.

Meanwhile, NRO's Jeffrey Anderson insists Upton's bill is not a trap:

The Upton bill helps put Obama’s oft-repeated “you can keep it” lie even more front-and-center. More important, it puts red-state and swing-state Senate Democrats in the position where they have to decide between defying Obama on his centerpiece legislation or else saying that they don’t think their constituents who like their plans should be able to keep their plans. In short, it puts them in an impossible place and helps solidify their status as sitting ducks a year from now.

Moreover — and important — the Upton bill would not help fix Obamacare. To the contrary, if it were to become law, it would badly undermine Obamacare’sexchanges, which would then be drained of millions of (previously insured and hence generally healthier) people whom Obama wanted to compel to buy exchange-based plans by banning their preferred plans. In short, Upton would hurtObamacare, not fix it — which is why Obama opposes it.

Erickson returns the volley, doubling down...

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Remember, Obamacare already has embedded in the law provisions bailing out insurance companies and the Democrats and Republicans have shown themselves perfectly comfortable bailing out businesses deemed “too big to fail” in the past. Insurance companies participating in the exchanges will be deemed “too big to fail” I guarantee. So the Democrats can hurt insurance companies and undermine their own exchanges, but the government will bail out the insurance companies affected under the terms of Obamacare as already written.

The House would send the Senate the Upton measure. The Senate Democrats will respond, “But Upton has not teeth. Landrieu has teeth.” The Senate will substitute Landrieu’s legislation for Upton’s, send it back to the House, and watch the GOP try to explain why they say their for letting people keep their health insurance plans, but will not actually force insurance companies to let people keep those plans.

Yet again, the GOP will be cast as the tool of insurance companies and Mary Landrieu as the savior of plans people already have. Republicans will cave. They’ll console themselves thinking Landrieu’s bill will undermine Obamacare and cause it to collapse.