Jindal releases alternative plan for Affordable Care Act

The morning after President Obama declared that the Affordable Care Act is “here to stay,” Gov. Bobby Jindal is calling for its repeal and has released a formal alternative plan for the Republican party. The release of the plan by Jindal came just hours after Obama announced that, as of midnight Tuesday, 7.1 million Americans had enrolled in private health insurance plans under the act, slightly exceeding the administration’s original goal despite initial, disastrous problems with the Healthcare.gov website. But Jindal calls the law “unpopular, unworkable, and misguided” in a report released this morning by America Next, a conservative nonprofit policy group he founded last year. Jindal was to further discuss his proposal this morning at a breakfast with reporters hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. “Conventional wisdom in Washington holds that the law cannot be fully repealed,” Jindal says in the report. “I couldn’t disagree more. A country that won two world wars and landed a man on the moon can surely eradicate this attack on our health care system.” In the plan—which Jindal also highlights in a Fox News guest column published online today—he calls for, among other things, providing $100 billion over 10 years to provide grants to states that take innovative steps on health care, including guaranteeing access to insurance for people with preexisting conditions. Read the executive summary of Jindal’s plan, or check out the complete 23-page plan. —Staff report