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Nobel-winning Economist Paul Krugman lays waste to the Republican Party’s replacement for Obamacare, which he says is not properly to be called Obamacare 2.0 but rather Obamacare 0.5:

It’s not Obamacare 2.0. It’s Obamacare 0.5 – a half-assed attempt to preserve ACA successes without spending nearly enough money — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) March 7, 2017

Krugman argues in his column this morning that because “the GOP proposal basically accepts the logic of Obamacare” with its reliance on tax credits and penalties for those who don’t buy insurance, “Conservatives calling the plan Obamacare 2.0 definitely have a point.”

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However, he warns, “a better designation would be Obamacare 0.5, because it’s really about replacing relatively solid pillars with half-measures, severely and probably fatally weakening the whole structure.”

Krugman says of the Republican attempt to replace Obamacare “It’s an amazing spectacle.”

“Obviously, Republicans backed themselves into a corner: after all those years denouncing Obamacare, they felt they had to do something, but in fact had no good ideas about what to offer as a replacement. So they went with really bad ideas instead.”

He pointed out too, in response to Jason Chaffetz’s solution that poor people stop buying iPhones and pay for their own insurance, that,

“A policy on the exchanges costs around $3500 in most states, would rise sharply under GOP plan. iPhone around $700.”

So not buying an iPhone is not going to get you medical insurance. You just won’t have any way to call for help when you get sick or hurt. But that’s OK with Republicans.

As Krugman parses this Republican Party’s very bad joke on the American public at our expense and to the benefit of the insurance company executives, “Mean spiritedness is all that’s left.”

It’s not that it’s all they had to give us. Rather, it’s all the GOP wanted to give us. We already had the Affordable Care Act, after all, which is superior in every respect to Obamacare 0.5.

The Republican Party has shown that they are one group of people it would be unwise to turn your back on. We’ve seen what happens, and who they really represent. Hint: It’s not you.