This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, September 9, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Republican candidates across the board are running against Obamacare, but what are they running for with respect to health care?

Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, says two of the candidates appear to be running on Obamacare Light.

What are the candidates saying about health care?

Obviously, Obamacare is unpopular.

People want to repeal and replace replace even though that's unlikely.

Well you're not going to be taken seriously as a Republican presidential contender unless you

oppose Obamacare, unless you swear up and down that you want to repeal Obamacare because if there's one issue

that unites the Republican base at its opposition to Obamacare, which is why candidates

like John Kasek, who has actually implemented part of Obamacare at the state level, the law's Medicaid

expansion, are having a little bit of difficulty with this issue.

But I think as time goes on, even more Republican candidates will have difficulty with this issue

because while all of them want to repeal and replace Obamacare a lot of

them are forwarding replacement plans that have a lot in common with Obamacare that resemble

Obamacare so much that it's fair to call them Obamacare light.

And two of those candidates are Scott Walker,

governor of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio, senator from Florida.

Walker and Rubio were two of the earliest to introduce their replacement plans.

And they are relying mostly on something called a refundable tax credit for health

insurance.

Now that sounds like a tax cut and what's better in this world than tax cuts.

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