Two Democratic legislators proposed Friday that Iowa end private management of Medicaid and let consumers who now purchase expensive private insurance buy Medicaid coverage instead.

Sen. Matt McCoy and Rep. John Forbes pitched the idea as a way for the state to save hundreds of millions of dollars while offering a lifeline to roughly 20,000 Iowans facing the loss of any affordable options for private health-insurance policies.

However, the plan would face long odds in a statehouse controlled by Republicans, and it couldn’t go into effect until at least 2019.

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” said Forbes, a Democrat from Urbandale.

McCoy, a Democrat from Des Moines, said it is time for states to come up with solutions, because the Republican-controlled Congress has been upending the health-care system while trying in vain to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. “We’ve all watched Congress dither, delay and fail at the efforts toward improving our health care system,” he said in a Statehouse press conference.

The Democrats called their proposal "Healthy Iowans for a Public Option," or HIPO. A poster explaining it included a cartoon drawing of a hippopotamus.

The proposal drew quick derision from Republicans. “It’s a half-baked idea that hasn't even worked in the most liberal of states,” House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said in a press release Friday afternoon. “This is a political ploy that will end up costing Iowans hundreds of millions of dollars and turn choice and control over to the government.”

Brenna Smith, spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, called the Democrats' idea "a sugar pill," which would do nothing for Iowans facing sky-high premiums for 2018 coverage.

The Democrats’ announcement also drew skepticism from audience member Bill Zook of Ankeny, who came to the Statehouse Friday morning in hopes of hearing the legislators offer an immediate option for him. Zook and his wife, Tammy, are among thousands of Iowans facing drastic premium increases for insurance they buy on their own instead of obtaining coverage from an employer or government program.

As McCoy and Forbes touted their proposal, Zook stood up in the fourth-row of chairs and faced them. “I want to know what I’m going to do for insurance in 2018,” Zook told the legislators. “I don’t care what Democrats have done, what Republicans have done, I want to know what’s going to happen, because I’m faced with no insurance.”

Zook, 57, said he took early retirement from a national retailer, which cancelled its retirees’ health plan because the company said they could get less expensive insurance under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. But the individual policies under that law are anything but affordable, Zook said.

The Zooks now pay $1,458 per month for a Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield policy with a $13,000 annual deductible. Wellmark notified them earlier this year that it was cancelling their policy as it pulls out of the individual insurance market at the end of 2017. That leaves the Zooks with one possible carrier, Medica, which agreed to stay in the Iowa market for 2018 only if state regulators would let it implement steep premium increases. Zook said a comparable 2018 policy from Medica would cost him and his wife about $2,400 per month. Unlike roughly 50,000 of the 72,000 affected Iowans, the Zooks make too much money to qualify for Obamacare subsidies to cushion the blow of such premiums. An insurance agent told them they might consider moving to another state, he said.

McCoy expressed sympathy. "We understand why you're frustrated," he told Zook. "We're frustrated too."

The Democrats’ proposal would let Iowans who buy their own insurance plans choose to pay for coverage under Medicaid instead of from a private insurer. McCoy and Forbes said they didn’t know how much such Medicaid policies would cost consumers, but they predicted it would be cheaper than private insurance, whose premiums have skyrocketed. At the earliest, such coverage would be available for 2019.

No states allow private insurance customers to buy into Medicaid as a "public option." If the Democrats' proposal somehow made it through the Legislature and was signed by the governor, it would need approval from the Republican administration of President Donald Trump. That could be a tall order, but Forbes and McCoy said they believe it could be accomplished if enough people support the idea.

The Democrats’ proposal also would rescind Iowa’s controversial 2016 move to private management of Medicaid, the $4 billion state and federal health-insurance program for poor and disabled people. The shift has been intensely controversial, with critics saying it has led to cuts in services to Medicaid members and reams of red tape and payment delays for care providers. Supporters of the shift, including the governor, say it is leading to more efficient and effective care.

Zook had pinned his hopes on a "stopgap" insurance plan proposed by Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen.

The proposal would have reconfigured Obamacare subsidies in a way that Ommen said would attract more young and healthy people to the risk pool for individual private insurance policies. That would lead to lower 2018 premiums for consumers like the Zooks, the commissioner said. But Ommen withdrew that proposal Monday, after federal administrators from the Trump administration declined to approve it in time for sign-ups to begin Nov. 1.

Republicans blamed the stopgap plan's failure on restrictive rules under Obamacare. Democrats blamed the Republican president's administration for rebuffing a proposal from Republican Iowa officials. Zook said he was fed up with the bickering. “I don’t care about that stuff,” he told McCoy. “I just need it done.”