Daft Duffy Shifts Blame After Voting To Repeal and Replace Medicare...oops, Obamacare

It should come as no secret that Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" Medicare-killing-class-war manifesto was built on the premise that if passed, it would not only repeal President Obama's Affordable Health Care Reform Act but that it would be the privatization framework Republicans would use to replace it with.

Think Progress Excerpt:
Freshman Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) promised during his campaign that he would only repeal health reform after finding a solution to replace it. However, he told a town hall meeting in his district this week that GOP leaders had convinced him to vote for repeal first, ensuring him that a replacement would be on its way. GOP leaders, Duffy said, told him that a replacement bill would be ready by the Spring. The fact that nothing has been proposed or debated all year has Duffy “very concerned”

Wait a second!! Paul Ryan's budget proposal Path to Prosperity was made ready for public consumption during the first week of April. That's spring! No? And, Ryan's "Path" contained four highlighted pages dedicated to terminating President Obama’s Affordable Heath Care Act and lists defunding, repealing and replacing as one the plan's key objectives.

Path to Prosperity excerpt:

KEY OBECTIVES

PATIENT-CENTERED HEALTH CARE: Repeals and defunds the President’s health care law, advancing instead common-sense solutions focused on lowering costs, expanding access and protecting the doctor-patient relationship.

[underline highlights added]

Ryan's privatization and deceptively described "patient centered" proposal was the GOP's replacement plan and according to all definitions, form and function, it cannot co-exist with Obama's Affordable Health Care Act. In fact it can be said that Ryan's Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Resolution IS the Republican's defunding, repealing and replacing "Obamacare" all in one act. Duffy should know. He voted for it.

Think Progress Excerpt:
Duffy’s frustration is understandable. As Jared Bernstein has noted in March, Republicans still had not brought up a bill outline or even begun the steps in the relevant committees to propose a comprehensive health bill.

I totally disagree with that statement. The Ezra Klein article referenced by TP from March was three weeks before Ryan presented his budget proposal and no one at the time, no one, would have thought Ryan's anticipated annual budget would contain language repealing and replacing the Affordable Health Care Act. But it did. Duffy's "frustration" now is phony.

Duffy is just another shifty empty suit in a long line of shifty Republican empty suits who are now running as far away as they can from their "Care Killing" budget vote in the House. It's like it never happened.

Here's the clincher. Some of Duffy's "repeal Obamacare" constituents seemed to have no idea that Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" was actually a deal resolution that would eventually terminate their Medicare in exchange for repealing Obamacare. One couldn't happen without the other. What a deal - eh?! Things were bad enough as it stood so Duffy wasn't going to tell them the truth about it. Instead he says republican leadership offered nothing for repeal and replace and lunatic constituents call him a liar for it. He got off easy.

Watch it:

Duffy Says Republican Leadership Misled Him