House Republicans outlined their own health care bill Wednesday, but they acknowledged that, like the offerings from Democrats, it leaves some questions unanswered.

The Republicans hope to head off Democratic efforts to increase the government’s role in health care by strengthening private insurance and making coverage cheaper and easier to obtain. But what Republican leaders offered was largely a collection of talking points. Lawmakers involved in the discussions said they are still haggling over the details.

“It’s still a work in progress,” said Charles Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, a member of the group Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, assigned to develop health policy. “We’re making a serious effort to get a bill together that a majority of our caucus can embrace.”

A spokesman for Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who leads the GOP health group, said Republican leaders aim to have a bill ready by the time House Democrats bring their own plan to the floor next month.

The Republican plan, according to the outline, will focus on expanding insurance coverage in part by allowing states to jointly regulate private insurance plans and allowing small businesses to join in partnerships to buy coverage for their employees. Both individuals and small businesses would receive new tax deductions and tax credits — in unspecified amounts — to help cover insurance premiums.

Wednesday’s outline draws heavily from Republican legislative proposals in past Congresses, including limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, expansion of health savings accounts and steps to make the prices of medical procedures and insurance coverage more transparent.

A House GOP aide involved in discussions on health legislation said the aim is to give states and businesses more flexibility in regulating and buying insurance without creating new mandates on insurers that Democrats have included in their legislation, including requirements that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions, provide a minimum level of benefits or limit differences in premiums for older or sicker people.

The aide said Republicans believe that increasing competition in private insurance markets would make such mandates unnecessary.

Republicans said they would reduce the number of uninsured people — now estimated at about 46 million — by as much as 7 million simply by allowing children to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 25. They also propose allowing people on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to convert the value of their coverage into a voucher to buy private insurance.

Costs: To Be Determined

Republicans said they didn’t know how much their plans would cost, and they proposed no way of paying for its provisions, except for a crackdown on fraud and waste in Medicare. But they vowed that their bill would cost less than the $1 trillion over 10 years that Democrats are contemplating. Republican leaders have, however, rejected one way to pay for an overhaul: by taxing any portion of workers’ health benefits.

“Right now there’s very little enthusiasm on my part to try to argue that’s a winning position,” said Michael C. Burgess of Texas, another member of the Republican health policy group. He noted that President Obama heavily criticized his opponent, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in last year’s election for making such a proposal.

“They took it off the table for all of us, in my opinion,” Burgess said. He said he would prefer selling oil rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the outer continental shelf.

Boustany and Burgess said the Republicans’ proposal had been slowed by a problem plaguing lawmakers in both parties struggling with health care solutions. Congress’ legislative counsel’s office, which turns policy into legislative language, and the Congressional Budget Office, which estimates how much the policy will cost, are both swamped by health overhaul proposals.

Burgess said it had taken Republicans two months to get a first draft of their bill from the legislative counsel’s office. He stayed up with his staff until 3 a.m. Wednesday reviewing the language, he said.


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