ST. PAUL — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden wants to take a scissors to President Barack Obama’s health care law. Now he has a plan to replace it.

McFadden outlined his vision on Friday for how to cut health care costs and undo the law, a rallying cry among Republican candidates nationwide. The businessman seeking to replace Sen. Al Franken said he wants to keep some of the law’s popular provisions, such as a ban on denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and allowing children to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26, but said health care should be handled by states — not the federal government.

“I believe fundamentally that Obamacare is the wrong solution,” McFadden said during a St. Paul news conference. “We need to start over.”

McFadden has made Franken’s vote for the president’s health care law a centerpiece of his campaign, but Democrats have repeatedly criticized McFadden — and Republicans nationwide — for not articulating an alternative.

McFadden’s plan includes several components frequently promoted by GOP candidates to cut health care costs: allow consumers to purchase health insurance across state lines, increasing transparency of the costs of medical procedures and a cap to awards in medical malpractice cases, commonly called tort reform.

He called for an end to the federal government’s individual mandate, leaving it to states to decide whether to require that citizens purchase health insurance. And for patients with pre-existing conditions, the federal government should fund state-based high risk pools — like the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association — to subsidize the extra expense. The savings from scrapping the health care law would more than pay for that subsidy, he said.

Franken’s campaign said some of McFadden’s changes would only worsen health care in the U.S. Franken and other Democrats have touted Minnesota’s 4.9 percent uninsured rate — No. 2 in the nation, according to a University of Minnesota study — as proof of the law’s benefits.

McFadden pointed to the exit last week of the largest insurance company participating in Minnesota’s health care exchange, as evidence of the contrary.

“This isn’t working,” he said.