The Republican substitute will be offered during floor debate on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's tax-health care bill and will incorporate all or parts of eight bills already introduced by Republicans.

Leading the list is the "Empowering Patients First Act" by the study committee which Price heads. Among other provisions, it would extend the income tax deduction on health care premiums to individuals and provide a low-income tax credit for premiums. It would also bar use of federal funds for abortion and limit health care insurance to legal residents.

The bill would provide "portability and choice," according the GOP group, and ensure "coverage for those with pre-existing conditions or high health care needs" through pooling of risk and "increased federal block grant for functioning, qualified pools."

Price said the Democrat plan written by Pelosi and Company "will place Washington bureaucrats in between you and your doctor." In contrast, he said, "our plan follows a patient-centered approach that empowers Americans to truly own and control their health coverage."

The Roswell congressman said Americans "want reforms that provide them with more choices, more competition, more innovation, higher quality and lower costs." He said, "Democrat leaders have worked in secret to write a bill that does exactly the opposite."

Another key part of the Republican plan is covered in the "Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act" by Rep. Gingrey. This is the "medical liability reform bill," also known as tort reform, that would limit non-economic, "pain and suffering" awards to $250,000" and would limit punitive damages "to no greater than twice the economic damages."

Gingrey has called for "enacting medical liability reform to keep 'jackpot' justice for a few from increasing health care costs for everyone."

And, according to the Republican Study Committee, the cost of the GOP plan "is completely offset through decreasing defensive medicine, savings from health care efficiencies, sifting out waste, fraud and abuse."

The GOP plan has no chance in the Democrat-run Congress. But the outlook is increasingly uncertain for the Democrat plans. The good news is they could be delayed and even defanged or derailed by 2010 election-year politics.

dmckee9613@aol.com