WASHINGTON At his first post-election press conference on Wednesday, president-elect Donald Trump said he will release his own plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act shortly after taking office. What he didnt say is what that plan will be or how it will work.

After Election Day, Trump and Republican leaders in Congress immediately started laying out a plan to repeal the health care reform law President Barack Obama enacted in 2010 that has reduced the national uninsured rate to its lowest level ever . So far, they have failed to tell the public what they would rather do instead.

If Trump actually follows through on his vow, his will be providing one of a growing number of competing and vague GOP proposals to remake the health care system, which doesnt portend rapid action in Congress.

Trump said his new administration will present its ideas about health care reform after Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) is confirmed as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Were going to be submitting, as soon as our secretary is approved almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter a plan, he said. Itll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially simultaneously. It will be various segments, you understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week, but probably the same day could be the same hour.

Yet congressional Republicans are in increasing disarray about when and how to take on the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, so theres reason to doubt the president-elects assertion that Congress could act on his unseen health care proposals the same day, or even the same hour, that he sends them to Capitol Hill.

Trump called his plan very complicated stuff, but insisted, Were going to get a health bill passed, were going to get health care taken care of in this country.

Youre going to be very, very proud of what we put forth having to do with health care, he added. Were going to have a health care that is far less expensive and far better.

These are easy promises to make and very difficult promises to keep not least because, as Trump noted, health care policy is complicated. And his previous statements and proposals make it impossible to guess what he really wants to do.

Trumps positions on what the health care system should look like have shifted wildly since his presidential campaign began.

At times, hes promised government-funded universal health care and praised Canadas single-payer system . Hes also talked about letting health insurers set up shop in states with the laxest regulations and allowing them to sell skimpy policies by getting rid of the lines between the states.

After winning the election, Trump revised his proposals to bring them closer to orthodox Republican ideas like cutting Medicaid funding and promoting tax-free health savings accounts. The only thing consistent about his views is that whatever comes after the Affordable Care Act will be terrific and better and less expensive.

And Congress is nowhere close to being in a position to advance a new set of health care reforms at the same time it votes to undo the Affordable Care Act because Republicans cant agree on the procedural steps , let alone the policy they would put in place. After years of attacking Obamacare, the GOP has never even reached a consensus about what the goals of health care reform are.

The Affordable Care Act sought to reduce the uninsured rate, to implement stronger consumer protections, including guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, and to provide financial assistance to low- and middle-income people who couldnt afford health coverage in the past.

The law plainly succeeded on the first two counts, but has had mixed success on the third. Subsidies cut off for people earning four times the federal poverty level which is $48,000 a year for a single person leaving families who arent wealthy to pay the full premium for their health insurance. That burden increased this year when rates increased much more than during the first three years of Obamacare enrollment.

At his press conference on Wednesday, Trump lamented that some Obamacare plans carry very high deductibles that reduce their value for people whod have to spend thousands of dollars out of pocket before their benefits kick in.

You have deductibles that are so high that after people go broke paying their premiums which are going through the roof the health care cant even be used by them because the deductibles are so high, Trump said.

Thats true for a portion of people who have this coverage. But the cumulative impact of all plans conservative intellectuals and Republican lawmakers are circulating would be to expose people to even higher out-of-pocket medical costs.

And none of the policy outlines Republicans have promoted would dedicate the level of funding required to maintain what the Affordable Care Act already does, let alone make insurance cheaper and available to more people.

This includes Prices plan , which would claw back regulations on the insurance industry, effectively allowing companies to cover fewer services and impose higher co-pays and deductibles and making it harder for people with pre-existing conditions to get decent coverage in the first place.

Throw in the fact that Prices proposal, like all Republican plans, would dramatically cut funding for Medicaid, which provides insurance to millions of low-income Americans, and the result would be more crippling medical bills for the American public, not fewer.