Surprise: it's not about getting as many people healthcare insurance as possible. No, because how do you know the private market can support all those people getting insurance? No the goal for conservatives is to keep healthcare insurance in the private market even though no less a believer in free markets than Kenneth Arrow admitted that healthcare is one market the free market doesn't handle well.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/11/diary-of-a-republican-hater-is-john-cochrane-confident-enough-of-obamacares-failure.html
I admit I kind of like this link because Delong refers to a post I wrote on healthcare and Arrow.
As Greg Sargent points out this morning, fundamentally the GOP is opposed to anything but a 'free market solution' to healthcare and even as a goal any such alleged solution will not be concerned about getting as many people healthcare insurance as possible. At the end of the day the didn't mind the status quo of pre Obamacare when 52 million Americans were uninsured.
"Conservative writer Philip Klein is out with a new book in which he discusses this quandary and what Republicans should do about it. Klein reports on a meeting between conservatives and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal — a potential 2016 presidential candidate — in which Jindal offers usefully revealing quotes that nicely preview this debate:
Sargent gives points or candor here as usually the GOP is rather coy on this point. I can see why. If getting as many on healthcare as possible is not the metric what is? Which plan wins the highest 'free market' rating from Heritage?
Sargent wargames what might happen if SCOTUS does gut ACA:
"If SCOTUS guts the subsidies, we might see a fight between Republicans who want to agree to fix the problem to avoid a backlash, and others — such as Jindal — arguing that Republicans shouldn’t fear the politics of supporting an alternative (whatever that turns out to be) that doesn’t even bother competing with Obamacare’s coverage expansion. All this might suddenly figure in the 2016 presidential race, with GOP candidates (and Dems) positioning themselves around the question of how (or whether) to fix the law or embrace some alternative that would re-expand coverage in the wake of whatever the decision does to the law."
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/11/diary-of-a-republican-hater-is-john-cochrane-confident-enough-of-obamacares-failure.html
I admit I kind of like this link because Delong refers to a post I wrote on healthcare and Arrow.
As Greg Sargent points out this morning, fundamentally the GOP is opposed to anything but a 'free market solution' to healthcare and even as a goal any such alleged solution will not be concerned about getting as many people healthcare insurance as possible. At the end of the day the didn't mind the status quo of pre Obamacare when 52 million Americans were uninsured.
"Conservative writer Philip Klein is out with a new book in which he discusses this quandary and what Republicans should do about it. Klein reports on a meeting between conservatives and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal — a potential 2016 presidential candidate — in which Jindal offers usefully revealing quotes that nicely preview this debate:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/01/12/morning-plum-some-welcome-gop-candor-on-obamacare/“I don’t think conservative health care reform is about, we’re going to compete with [the left] in terms of how many people we see have an [insurance] care,” he said. “That not the ultimate goal.”He later elaborated, “If we start with the premise that we’ve gotta give every single person a card, and that’s the only way we can be successful, we’re done. We’ve adopted their metric of success…if the metric of success is gonna be which plan can say ‘we’ve given people more cards,’ they always win. Because they will always spend more, they will always disrupt more.”…He also put it this way: “I do think it’s a mistake if we argue we can’t take back what Obama has already given.”
Sargent gives points or candor here as usually the GOP is rather coy on this point. I can see why. If getting as many on healthcare as possible is not the metric what is? Which plan wins the highest 'free market' rating from Heritage?
Sargent wargames what might happen if SCOTUS does gut ACA:
"If SCOTUS guts the subsidies, we might see a fight between Republicans who want to agree to fix the problem to avoid a backlash, and others — such as Jindal — arguing that Republicans shouldn’t fear the politics of supporting an alternative (whatever that turns out to be) that doesn’t even bother competing with Obamacare’s coverage expansion. All this might suddenly figure in the 2016 presidential race, with GOP candidates (and Dems) positioning themselves around the question of how (or whether) to fix the law or embrace some alternative that would re-expand coverage in the wake of whatever the decision does to the law."
"Alternatively, keep an eye on another possibility: For some Republicans the talk of being ready to go with a “fix” or an alternative may simply prove a ruse designed to make the consequences of a SCOTUS decision against the law appear less dire – making such a decision more likely."
Some rather grim war-gaming! After the SJC gutted part of the Voting Rights Act the GOP altnerative plan was: they did nothing. No doubt their preference in terms of voting rights of all Americans is also a vague free market plan that again doesn't accept liberals terms in the right time of electoral system and isn't slavishly committed to making sure everyone actually votes.
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