I have to admit that the Republicans are equally lame on the health care issue. The new Republican Health Care “Bill of Rights” is utterly disgusting. I can’t believe they are doing this.
Neither party wants to tackle any of the substantive, necessary, therefore unpopular, aspects of health care reform. Nobody wants to:
1. Tax employee health care benefits just like any other income.
2. Make individuals more responsible for their own routine health care costs, so that they have an incentive to be frugal and aware.
3. Take steps to reduce the amount of end of life care that pointlessly extends and tortures the lives of the terminally ill.
The Republicans and Democrats are equally guilty of dodging these issues. All of the ways in which Obama is lying and demagoging are counter-balanced by Republicans doing the same in the opposite direction. The Republicans have a few good proposals, like tort reform, and insurance competition across state lines, but when they were in power, they had no interest in health care reform whatsoever.
Now that the Democrats are in power, health care reform, like all of their major initiatives, is just another name for more pork for Democratic constituencies. There isn’t any reform in it, just like there isn’t any global temperature reduction in cap and trade and there isn’t any stimulus in the stimulus. It’s all about shoveling cash (in this case our grandchildren’s cash) to one’s friends, Chicago writ large.
The one virtue of the Republicans is that they are somewhat more inclined to do nothing than to do something. As Lao Tzu said, “The Tao abides in non-action, Yet nothing is left undone.”