Congressional Republicans have promised to “repeal and replace” President Obama’s health care reform law, but they still have not agreed on what that should look like. Today, Speaker John Boehner said every part of Obamacare needs to be removed:

“We voted to fully repeal the president’s healthcare law as one of our first acts as a new House majority, and our plan remains to repeal the law in its entirety,” Boehner said to reporters. “Anything short of that is unacceptable.”

But Republicans have yet to offer a viable alternative that would that would fill the void left by the law and provide coverage to the 30 million Americans who would lose insurance without Obamacare. Politico reported this morning that GOP leaders have quietly begun to float a piecemeal plan that may provide limited insurance coverage to a small portion of the uninsured. Republicans have said they would preserve the most popular provisions, like allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26, without the individual mandate that helps pay for the regulations.

But the GOP’s internal disagreement and unwillingness to offer a unified comprehensive plan suggests that they consider health care a low legislative priority. For instance, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — the GOP’s spokesman on economic issues — told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that the party will “articulate our vision” to replace the law, but wouldn’t necessarily offer a legislative solution.

This approach contrasts sharply from Republican’s pledge to “replace” reform as soon as it became law in 2010. Boehner promised in 2010 to “replace it with common-sense reforms,” and Ryan said in a 2011 speech that Republicans can’t stop at simply repealing the law and “have a responsibility to fix the broken network of government policies that have made such a mess of health care.”

But now that their strategy looks like nothing more than tossing out a law that helps expand access to health insurance while controlling costs, Republicans are telling the uninsured and those worried about rising health care costs that they are not concerned about fixing their problems.

The Missouri House passed a “conscience bill” yesterday to allow health care workers to deny health care to women. Under the law, medical professionals cannot be fired or discriminated against for refusing to provide contraception or perform abortions if it conflicted with their personal views, while employers do not have to cover contraception.

But as opponents of the measure point out, there is more at stake than religious convictions for doctors or pharmacists:

Most of the opposition in the House came from Democratic lawmakers representing districts near St. Louis and Kansas City who argued the legislation would inhibit access to health care for some Missourians. Several opponents said it seemed the measure was aimed particularly at birth control.

Rep. Stacey Newman, D-St. Louis, said the medical procedures at issue in the legislation would affect women most directly. Speaking with a male opponent of the measure, Newman said, “You will be putting your stamp on what you think I should be doing and also deciding if your religious beliefs will supersede my religious beliefs and my moral convictions.”

This bill now goes to the state Senate for consideration before the Missouri legislative session ends on Friday.

Missouri is not the only state to consider this kind of bill. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a similar bill allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription that they think could be used to induce an abortion. Opponents claim the law is broad enough that it could allow pharmacists to deny birth control or emergency contraception, or even procedures like chemotherapy if they would put a pregnancy at risk.

-Zachary Bernstein

Foreign aid in the United States accounts for less than 1 percent of all federal spending. Despite that, several Republicans want to slash, if not eliminate, assistance to poorer nations. But a new report on the effectiveness of one aid program should make policymakers reconsider that broad approach.

A study released Wednesday showed that the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) averted 741,000 deaths between 2004 and 2008. Previous research found that PEPFAR, created in 2003 by President George W. Bush, had prevented AIDS-related deaths, although researchers did not know if those people were dying of other diseases instead. But this report shows that is no the case, according to Reuters:

Data for the new study came from surveys done with adult women in 27 African countries, including nine with PEPFAR programs. Women were asked about their adult siblings and recent deaths in their families. The researchers used that information to calculate approximately how many adults in each country were dying every year, for any reason.

In 2003, Bendavid and his colleagues found that between eight and nine out of every 1,000 adults died, both in PEPFAR and non-PEPFAR nations. Countries in the new report that weren’t part of the program included Madagascar, Liberia, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

Five years later, death rates had dropped to four per 1,000 in PEPFAR countries and declined more modestly to seven out of every 1,000 without the program. That worked out to a 16 percent lower chance of death in countries with PEPFAR between 2004 and 2008, once other factors such as a country’s overall HIV rate and wealth were taken into account, the researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Despite the proven results, Mitt Romney would cut PEPFAR funds if elected president. At a New Hampshire town hall last October, Romney said he was “very reluctant to borrow lots more money to be able to do wonderful things, if those things can be done by people making charitable contributions or if other countries that are wealthy.” But as Bush said of PEPFAR last year, “We’re a blessed nation in the United States of America and I believe we are required to support effective programs that save lives.”

Romney is not always against spending or borrowing more money, however. From 2003 to 2008, Congress appropriated $18.8 billion to PEPFAR, or $3.76 billion a year. In contrast, Romney’s budget plan would increase the military budget by at least $210 billion a year over 10 years. Overall, the tax cuts in his budget would cost $10.7 trillion over the next decade.

-Zachary Bernstein

During an appearance on CSPAN’s Washington Journal Thursday morning, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) claimed that the Affordable Care Act would increase the number of Americans without health insurance, dismissing analysis showing that 30 million people would gain coverage under the law.

“Everybody in America has access to health care, and we even have many many organizations that make sure they fill those holes,” King explained. “The effort was to increase the number of insured in America and that number does not look like it will increase under Obamacare”:

KING: We’re actually going to get more people uninsured under Obamacare and this creates the foundation for a one-size-fits-all federally-run socialized medicine system. We’re not completely there and I think we are a lot better off to let the free markets do this and encourage people to be personally responsible.

Watch it:

King’s analysis of health policy couldn’t be more wrong. While organizations and hospitals do provide emergency services to uninsured Americans, the cost of that uncompensated care is shifted to private premium payers, resulting in higher health care spending system-wide. Obamacare accepts King’s premise of encouraging personal responsibility and will require able-bodied citizens to pay for their own health care expenses beginning in 2014.

During the interview, King also reiterated his opposition to requiring insurers to provide health care coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and said that Republicans should repeal the health care law in its entirety without preserving its popular provisions. This position puts him at odds with Republican leaders, who are drafting a plan to maintain aspects of the law that allow young people to stay on their parents health care plans and outlaw discrimination against sick people.