(Photo via Twitter)

Topher Spiro

Now that Senate Republicans’ attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, appear to be dead for the time being, lawmakers are back in their home districts hearing what their constituents think, and health care advocates are on the road, trying to garner public support behind alternative plans for the nation’s health care system.

One of those advocates is Topher Spiro with the Center for American Progress. He was in the Valley over the weekend in Phoenix and Tucson, rallying for a progressive way forward on health care with former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Ability 360 advocates.

And he came into our studios while he was here to speak with The Show.

Spiro’s plan, which he outlined in an op-ed in the Washington Post recently, includes taking pieces of the Affordable Care Act and some of the Senate GOP’s Better Care Reconciliation Act. But can there really be a bipartisan way forward on health care in this political climate?

We speak with him more about that and the reaction in Washington after the last GOP plan failed.

Spiro is vice president of Health Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. And his tour around the country rallying for health care reform continues: he’ll be in Denver on Tuesday with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez.