Mid puff-piece about how Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Scott Brown are, like, totally this odd couple!, the Washington Post inadvertently discusses Wyden and Brown’s policy proposal for a single paragraph:
In short, the legislation would allow states to opt out of the federal health law in 2014 instead of 2017, provided they meet minimum coverage benchmarks. The argument, Wyden said, is that the bill would give both conservatives and liberals a chance to prove their theories on how best to run health care. Conservative-leaning states antagonistic to the bill’s individual mandate provisions can try more market-based models. And the more liberal states that considered the overhaul insufficiently bold can give the public option a shot.
This is really Wyden’s proposal (as was the original 2017 opt-out provision), and I think it’s good policy. If conservatives in Colorado think they can get better results for the same money, why shouldn’t they be able to try? And ditto for single-payer advocates in Vermont. Let a thousand flowers bloom, let the best policy win, etc etc..
But it’s worrisome that the first Republican to publicly sign on is Scott Brown, perhaps the most liberal Republican in the Senate. I’d be happier if Wyden could have found some more right-wing support for his proposal; if some more conservative conservatives don’t wind up supporting this bill, what chance will it have of getting though a Republican-dominated House?
Conservatives who actually thought they had better ideas of how to run health care might be eager to support Wyden/Brown. After all, there’s no lack of evidence that left-wing ideas for health care work; there are dozens of countries providing universal health coverage for all their citizens, spending less for better outcomes, using principals that lefties in the US support. If they really believe their ideas are any good, conservatives will welcome the chance to implement those ideas in the real world.
But that’s a big “if.” We’ll have to watch what happens in the next few months to see if conservatives really believe in their own ideas. My guess is that they don’t.
Meanwhile, the incoming Republican House majority demonstrates one thing they really do believe in: Exploding the deficit with tax cuts for the rich.
It’s all moot anyway.
The argument, Wyden said, is that the bill would give both conservatives and liberals a chance to prove their theories on how best to run health care.
Uh, wait just a minute here. What if liberals’ proposals require federal action to be effective? This looks to me like it effectively shuts out the federal gov’t from insurance reform. You can’t see the trap here?
Maybe you don’t want to; you still cling to the hope that these people want to govern? Your last sentence shows you suspect that conservatives might not be acting in good faith. Common sense and direct observation of their actions for the last decade at least allow more certainty. There’s no “if” here; you rely on their honesty, you’re going to get screwed.
RobW, could you be more specific about what you’re concerned?
No one is going to force states to go on their own. This proposal is strictly an opt-in.
Which left-wing policy ideas have been shown to work, when people are allowed to opt out of them? Can you ask the NHS to refund your taxes and in return forego use of the system? Can I agree not to file for Social Security benefits, and get my Social Security “contributions” refunded to me?
There are left-wing ideas that do work on a voluntary basis; food co-ops work great, for example, and I’ve put together a number of different ideas on how health care co-ops could work just fine. But “policy” implies things that people don’t want to do on their own; you don’t need a food-care policy to get people to join the food co-op, you just have to have enough hippies who like discount organic granola in one place.
The current health care policy solves the problem of people going without insurance by forcing everyone to buy insurance. I don’t see how that works if some people are then allowed to not buy insurance – other than “working” in the sense of hopelessly further fouling the market to artificially create a demand for a greater government takeover.
It’s opt-out on the state level, not the individual level, Robert. If a state can find a way to make the system work without a mandate, then it would be free to do so.
(There have been some ideas along these lines; a mandate would work best, but maybe it’s not the only option. This is a case where letting the states experiment with ideas may make sense.)
Another option, of course, is single-payer care. This has the disadvantage of not preserving millions of dollars in profits for insurance company millionaires, so conservatives won’t like it, but maybe some of the more liberal states will try it out.
There are left-wing ideas that do work on a voluntary basis; food co-ops work great, for example,
Other left-wing ideas work best when they’re mandatory. The FDA, for example. Anyone wishing for voluntary standards for food purity is requested to read “The Jungle” and reconsider their opinion…So is health care more like a food co-op or food purity standards?
Americans died in Sinclair’s time from poison food. Americans die today from poison food. The FDA is a poor example of a program that must be mandatory to work. I imagine that the FDA has done considerable good, but I can readily imagine it working very well on a voluntary basis along with truth in labeling laws.
Health care qua health care is probably more like food purity – about standards etc. But we aren’t discussing health care per se, we’re discussing PAYING FOR health care. Which makes it a lot more like a food co-op (how are we arranging the economic arrangements around product X) than food safety (what is acceptable/safe/OK).
But the vast majority of people that I talk to/discourse with that self-identify as conservatives fall out of this because they don’t think that government should be in the business of ensuring that everyone has health insurance in the first place.