Rubio lands major conservative health expert

Avik Roy, a top conservative health policy expert, is signing on to Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) presidential campaign as an adviser. 

No candidate expresses—and embodies—the American dream better than @MarcoRubio. I’m honored to be advising Sen. Rubio on policy. @TeamMarco

— Avik Roy (@Avik) October 12, 2015

Roy was previously an adviser to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign, before Perry dropped out of the race last month. Roy also advised Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012. He joins another conservative policy heavyweight and former Romney adviser, Lanhee Chen, in advising Rubio. 

{mosads}The announcement comes one day before another candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), is expected to lay out an ObamaCare replacement plan. 

Roy is a major critic of ObamaCare, and has proposed his own alternative plan for “near-universal coverage.” 

Rubio outlined an ObamaCare alternative of his own in a Fox News op-ed in March. The plan calls for tax credits to help people afford health insurance. Rubio proposes allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get coverage on special “high-risk pool” plans subsidized by the government. This is an alternative to ObamaCare’s system of pairing a mandate for people to purchase insurance with a ban on denying coverage based on pre-existing health conditions. 

Rubio also calls for placing Medicare and Medicaid on “fiscally sustainable paths” by capping Medicaid payments to states and transferring Medicare to a system where seniors have financial assistance to buy a plan on the market, rather than simply having a government-provided plan.

Roy wrote in Forbes in April that Rubio’s plan “embraces the conservative wonk consensus” and “goes in the right direction.” He also outlined a few “concerns.” One main concern was that Rubio was silent on whether the tax credits in his plan would be “means-tested,” meaning that poorer people get more assistance than richer people.

Roy worried that non means-tested tax credits would reduce aid for low-income people.