PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The stakes appear to be growing on almost a moment-by-moment basis for Oregon’s Greg Walden, a past master of the arts of both politics and substance.

Those qualities, first on display in the Oregon Legislature, have given him a leadership post in the Republican House in Washington, D.C. And, now, as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he has been thrust into a leading position on a major Republican priority – getting rid of ObamaCare and putting a better health care plan in place.

The prospect is easier than the reality.

The bottom line is this: Do you want a replacement for ObamaCare that relies, at least to a degree on market forces, or do you want a government single payer system?

Walden’s national stature won’t necessarily rise or fall on his health care leadership position, for he is far more than a one-issue politician. Plus, anyone who knows him knows he is nothing if not honest, forthright and bright. I first encountered him in Salem when I lobbied him and then represented an association (the Oregon Association of Broadcasters) that included his family radio station in Hood River.

He’ll need all his best qualities in the coming debate where he will join Representative Kevin Brady, House chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and House Speaker Paul Ryan as they try to push what inevitably may come to be called TrumpCare, a term Democrats are already using to deride it, just as Republicans used the term ObamaCare, though former President Obama eventually adopted the term himself, saying “he was Obama and he cared.”

As for TrumpCare, President Donald Trump has endorsed the Walden/Brady/Ryan plan, though he probably didn’t have much to do with its substance.

One major risk is that ObamaCare created so many government hand-outs that it will be tough to overturn. They’ll be many stories — call them anecdotes in the worst sense of that term in public policy — of people disadvantaged or who will lose government-provided health insurance coverage under the Walden/Brady/Ryan bill.

The Wall Street Journal, for its part, labels the plan one that can set the stage for action in Congress to replace ObamaCare, though it says the first draft is just and only that – a first draft.

But, the Washington Post calls it “heartless and reckless.”

Various critics have labeled it “ObamaCare Lite” and you can almost hear the glee in their voices as they come up with what they believe is such a quotable moniker. The next thing you know the plan will be called “Walden-gate” or “Brady-gate” after the Watergate mess.

As written by Walden, Brady and their staffs, the “American Health Care Act” would be the most consequential GOP social-policy reform since the welfare overhaul of 1996. Not only does the bill repair the failures of the Affordable Care Act, it starts to correct many of the government-created dysfunctions that have bedeviled U.S. health care for decades.

Though the individual insurance market dominates the debate, the House’s Medicaid reform might end up being more important. This safety-net program originally meant for poor women, children and the disabled has morphed into general insurance for working-age, able-bodied adults above the poverty level, despite concerns about low-quality care and price controls.

The House would convert Medicaid’s funding formula from an open-ended entitlement into block grants to states. The amount would be determined by per capita enrollment and grow with medical inflation. States would thus have a reason to set priorities and re-target Medicaid on the truly needy.

In the individual market, the bill discards ObamaCare’s web of mandates and regulations in favor of incentives to buy health insurance in a deregulated market.

Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal wrote a paragraph this week that is worth considering for all of the potential opponents of Walden, Brady and Ryan. “It’s important to note something else,” Jenkins wrote. “Even if we grant sincerity to Mr. Obama’s dream of an egalitarian health-care system, ObamaCare is a fair representation of what political reality would deliver: A system in which elected politicians constantly try to woo specific voter blocs by shifting their costs to other health-care payers or to the general taxpayer.”

To me, Jenkins point is on target and represents an overall reason why it’s time for Congress to get rid of ObamaCare for good. It also would be helpful if the new program was able to get votes from other than just Republicans on the strength of the reality that one of the reasons ObamaCare failed was that it was drafted and voted for only by Democrats.

“It’s time for Republicans to stand up and be counted,” Jenkins continued. “Having been handed the gift of ObamaCare’s failure, can Republicans show voters they can do better with conservative principles. What’s at stake, in the end, is this: Either health care reform heads in a more market-based direction step by step, or it moves toward single-payer system step by step. If Republicans blow this chance and default to Democrats, they might as well endorse single-payer because that is where the politics will end up.”

And this footnote: It’s interesting to note that the media is reporting rising opposition to the plan specifically because it is being considered in public. That’s very different than what happened with ObamaCare several years ago when few Democrats had even read the plan – including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment admitting the same – before they voted it into law, without any Republican support.