After a long wait and leaked discussion drafts, the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee have finally released their recommendations to repeal and replace ObamaCare. These committees were originally due to have their recommendations submitted to the House Budget Committee on January 27, as required by S.Con.Res. 3.

There is a meme developing in conservative circles that Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) ObamaCare Replacement Act, S. 222, retains ObamaCare's costly refundable tax credits. This faulty narrative is developing as a way to tamp down conservative opposition to the House Republican ObamaCare replacement effort, which includes a refundable tax credit.

Congressional Republicans all say they want to undo at least bits and pieces of ObamaCare. Efforts to unite behind a bill that would replace ObamaCare have been all over the map with senators like Bill Cassidy pitching his “repeal” as a way to keep ObamaCare.

Congressional Republicans have had nearly seven years to coalesce behind a patient-centered alternative to ObamaCare, but the discussion draft of repeal and replace legislation recently obtained by Politico shows that the GOP alternative to 2010 law is ObamaCare-lite.

House Republican leaders and HHS Secretary Tom Price have been briefing the House Republican Conference on the alternatives with which they plan to replace ObamaCare. While the transition period between ObamaCare and the Republican alternative, which still has not been introduced in legislative text, is unspecified, the policy brief that Republican leaders have given to the conference has been leaked to the press.