Republicans Missed The Boat On Health Reform

Now that Democrats in the House are nearing a vote on an historic health care reform bill, with the Senate not far behind, the Republican leadership is supposedly crafting its own 11th hour alternative that will be more market-driven. What took them so long? What has House Minority Leader John Boehner been waiting for?

Up until now, all the Republicans have done is gripe about President Obama and his fellow “socialists” in Congress taking over our health care system (when, in fact, the government already pays a huge portion of the tab via Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Administration hospitals–and thank goodness they do, because if they didn't, who would?).

President Obama, perhaps naively, came into office pledging a bipartisan effort. Whether you agree that he was sincere, or fault him to even trying to accomplish such a Utopian goal in our poisoned political culture, I think we can agree that Republicans all along have wanted a radically different approach.

So, did the Republicans go off and craft their own preferred bill these past months? Nope. All they did is take pot shots at the President and anyone in Congress pushing for reform. So NOW the Republicans are pledging to come up with their own bill?

Great! Better late than never, right?

So far, all we have are sketchy details, but the Republicans promise one huge change from the Democrats' approach, rejecting the one aspect of reform everyone in America seems to agree on–preventing insurers from rejecting or overcharging those with preexisting conditions?

That's what Rep. Boehner says he's going to do. Unbelievable!

Instead, he promises to encourage the creation of insurance pools for high-risk individuals, and take other unspecified steps to ease their access to coverage.

But unless he's willing to mandate that carriers cover such individuals at an affordable rate, taking all comers according to their state market share (an idea I pitched over the summer as Health Insurance Assigned Risk Pools), this idea is non-starter. And I doubt that is what Republicans have in mind, since they don't like government mandating anything.

The Republicans do have a few good ideas that should be part of any health care reform package.

Medical malpractice reform is a must to cut down on the unnecessary tests being ordered as defensive medicine against lawsuits–and such claims should be judged by medical experts, not a jury of lay people.

In addition, buyers should be able to shop for health insurance across state lines. (Although that would require federal regulation, would it not?)

Had the Republicans been more serious about actually reforming the health care system, rather than obsessing about stopping President Obama from achieving a political victory, they would have crafted their own alternative bill weeks, if not months ago.

Then they would have had some leverage to negotiate with Democrats desperate to get at 60-vote Senate super-duper majority, to include some of their best ideas in a final reform bill in return for bipartisan support.

But Republicans wanted no part of health care reform, and now they are paying the price by being left out in the cold.

As a result, Republicans are reduced to relying on the Democrats to fight among themselves to derail the bill.

But if such infighting is resolved, their only political hope would be that any bill passing without their support fails to do the trick, leaving millions uninsured and costs skyrocketing.

That way, they can blame the Democrats and retake control of Washington–but at what cost to the country?

How much better would it have been for everyone had the two parties actually worked together to solve our health care crisis?

Is this any way to govern?

What do you folks think?