Just four days ago, Republican health care consultant Avik Roy declared the Senate's health bill "the greatest policy achievement by a GOP Congress" in his lifetime. Now he's desperately trying to convince everyone that the bill, written behind closed doors without the input of health care professionals, patient groups and Democrats, is actually compassionate, bipartisan legislation.
In an op-ed published by The New York Times, Roy tried to address the partisan nature of the bill's drafting process, noting that Republicans in 2010 similarly complained about the one-sidedness of Obamacare, even though it got most of its inspiration from Republican Gov. Mitt Romney.
"Something similar is happening today," Roy wrote Tuesday. "Democrats are denouncing the partisan nature of the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. They’re right to note that if the new bill passes the Senate, it will do so along party lines."
"But the core planks of the Senate Republicans’ health bill — the Better Care Reconciliation Act — borrow just as much from Democratic ideas as Obamacare borrowed from Republican ones," he added.
Roy asserted that the Senate health care plan to reform Medicaid by tying enrollee spending to medical and consumer inflation was lifted almost entirely from a 1995 proposal by former President Bill Clinton.
Although the Democratic Party has moved significantly to the left on health care since Clinton was in office, Roy believes that this bill is entirely bipartisan because it included this proposal. The bill might as well have been written by Democrats, as Roy would lead one to think.
The conservative policy adviser has been front-and-center in the Obamacare repeal debate, loudly claiming that more Americans will be insured under the Republican's new health care legislation.
In his op-ed Tuesday, Roy doubled down on his this claim.
"It’s likely that, if the Senate bill passes, more Americans will have health insurance five years from now than do today," he wrote.
On Monday, Roy demanded an apology from MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid after she called him out on this analysis.
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