Hey, remember back in late May, when Randy Brock offered a sneak preview of his health care plan? His free-market alternative to the big-government, budget-bustin’, granny-killin’ Shumlin plan?

The one he’d been working on with the likes of El Jefe General John McClaughry and Tarren Bragdon, the man responsible for Maine Governor Paul LePage’s rather disastrous health care plan?

Remember that Brock said he’d unveil the full plan sometime in June?

And then, silence?

Well, Randy’s finally released the Kraken. In the weirdest possible way, as Peter Hirschfeld of the Vermont Press Bureau entertainingly notes:

We anticipated a glitzy, glamorous rollout for the plan, which is, very broadly speaking, a free-market alternative to the single-payer system favored by Gov. Peter Shumlin. Or at least a press conference, to draw TV cameras and front-page headlines, which he easily could have gotten.

Instead, “The Brock Health Care Vision: A 100% Solution,” rolled in unannounced to reporters’ inboxes at a time when many might have already called it a day.

Hard to make heads or tails of the strategy yet, but Brock obviously isn’t looking to make this plan the cornerstone of his campaign.

He also released it, intentionally or not, during a news cycle that’s going to be dominated by the fallout from the Progressive Party’s gubernatorial primary.

Hirschfeld’s explanation is the only one I can think of for this underwhelming rollout. Which is awfully damn pathetic, considering that Brock has made health-care reform — or at least criticism of Shumlin’s plan — a cornerstone of his campaign.  

At first glance, one can understand why this proposal might not look like a winner. It’s a lot like LePage’s, which has led to lower premiums for some (the young and healthy) but much higher premiums for others (the older and sicker, or those in high-risk occupations), and allowed insurers all kinds of regulatory leeway to offer really crappy coverage at relatively low cost.

Brock’s plan would allow consumers to buy insurance across state lines — because hey, it worked so well with credit-card issuers, who flooded the market with attractive-looking deals with all kinds of hidden costs and charges, deceptive interest rates, and unreadably dense terms of service. (What’s in your wallet?) Not to mention the big national mortgage mills that precipitated the 2008 crash by littering the landscape with bad debt.

He would also greatly loosen the rules on “community rating,” which forces insurers to bundle low-risk and high-risk customers into the same pool, thus leveling prices. As in Maine, loosening the rules would lower rates for the young and healthy, but raise them for the older, sicker, and more at-risk. (Lumbermen take note.)

The full plan, including all sorts of dandy conservative rhetoric (bureaucrats bad! Free market good!), can be read at Randy’s campaign website. Should you wish to.