Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) wants Americans to be able to buy insurance the same way they buy lawnmowers — without government regulation. In a radio interview with WIXK’s Jeff Patterson, the freshman congressman said consumers know exactly what they’re going to spend when they buy a lawnmower, but they have “no clue” what they would pay for a colonoscopy.

Competition and transparency would help the market for health care, Duffy said:

“You’re talking about cost controls,” Duffy said. “First of all, do we have cost controls on lawnmowers?”

Patterson noted that a lawnmower is different from heart surgery, for example.

“Because you have competition,” replied Duffy. “And so if you have competition within the plans, you have a right to purchase in the exchange of Medicare, we believe that that competition drives prices down. And when we see markets work in competition in any sector of the economy, we see higher quality and lower prices. And that’s what we’re advocating for within health care.”

“This is not a market that actually works because people can’t shop on price and service because they can’t get that data,” he added.

But the problem with Duffy’s lawnmower comparison is that people don’t buy a lawnmower not knowing when they need it. They buy them to mow their lawns and take time to comparison shop to get a good deal. Instead, when it comes to health insurance, consumers have to rely on employer-provided plans or shop for expensive plans on the individual insurance market where one-fifth of applicants are denied coverage. And the version of “consumer-driven health care” that Duffy seems to be supporting is rooted in the idea that patients will act like consumers and compare quality and costs of medical procedures, negotiating lower prices as needed.

While in theory, it should give people more control over their health coverage, the high-deductible health plans lead people to purchase coverage that might be inadequate for their needs. Consumer satisfaction for the “consumer-driven” plans is low, and patients are unlikely to comparison shop for health services because doctors still have primary control over health care. Instead of helping, Duffy’s hope that buying insurance can be just like buying a lawnmower would only increase costs and hurt consumers.

Last year, Republican campaigned on a promise to repeal all of President Obama’s health reform law, the Affordable Care Act. Realizing that many of the well-publicized provisions are wildly popular, like ending discrimination of so-called preexisting diseases, GOP leaders promised to “replace” the repealed bill with a solution of their own. However, after voting to repeal the entire bill, GOP lawmakers have done nothing to advance an alternative.

Freshman Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) promised during his campaign that he would only repeal health reform after finding a solution to replace it. However, he told a town hall meeting in his district this week that GOP leaders had convinced him to vote for repeal first, ensuring him that a replacement would be on its way. GOP leaders, Duffy said, told him that a replacement bill would be ready by the Spring. The fact that nothing has been proposed or debated all year has Duffy “very concerned”:

DUFFY: I believe, if we’re going to repeal the president’s health care plan, we should replace it. I still believe that. [...] As I dealt with the leadership, that was a concern of mine. And I got a commitment from leadership that we were going to come up with a replacement. And they told me we were going to do it in the Spring. In the Spring we haven’t come out with our replacement proposal and that has me very concerned. Because that what was we had talked about before we had the vote, “repeal and replace.”

Watch it (video courtesy of Americans United for Change):

Duffy’s frustration is understandable. As Jared Bernstein has noted in March, Republicans still had not brought up a bill outline or even begun the steps in the relevant committees to propose a comprehensive health bill. Moreover, the “alternative” offered by the GOP last year did nothing to cover tens of millions of uninsured and rein in widespread industry abuses. In fact, the GOP’s bill increased the number of uninsured.