Tag: Ramesh Ponnuru

The Core of Big Brother


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The IRS Has Already Abused Its Powers under ObamaCare








On ObamaCare, David Frum Just Doesn’t Get It

David Frum knows that ObamaCare can’t be repealed.  But don’t worry, he also knows how to make it palatable to Republicans:

  1. Move up the start date of ObamaCare’s state waiver program from 2017 to 2014.  As I explain here, that program will only produce alternatives to ObamaCare that are equally or more anti-market, such as a single-payer system.  Frum wants that to happen sooner.
  2. Raise taxes, on everybody.  I swear I am not making that up.
  3. Replace ObamaCare’s individual mandate with an equally coercive tax credit that accomplishes the same thing, but which the courts would probably uphold.  Bra-vo.  Frum implies it is necessary to “work around” the fact that Republicans are not “entirely rational” when it comes to the individual mandate.  (True, but they’re getting more rational all the time.)
  4. Republicans should embrace government rationing of health care.  Frum counsels Republicans to “unleash the cost controllers” and become the “green eyeshade party willing to do the disagreeable work of squeezing waste from the system.”  How?  Well, he doesn’t call for Medicare vouchers, under which enrollees would ration their own care.  In fact, he has thrown cold water on that idea.  But the only alternative is to have the government ration care.  And Frum makes no distinctions between the elderly and non-elderly, which leads me to believe he wants Republicans to ration care to the under-65 crowd too.  Slap that on a bumper sticker!

In sum, Frum’s GOP-palatable alternative to ObamaCare is … ObamaCare.  But maybe more coercive.  And implemented sooner.  With higher taxes.  And less vulnerable to legal challenges.  And with Republicans playing the bad guy.

Frum laments that Republicans mistakenly threw away the opportunity to work with Democrats to implement these brilliant ideas in 2009 and 2010.  But Republicans did so because these brilliant ideas hurt people.  They were wrapped into a bill called ObamaCare, and Republicans rejected it.  They were right to do so.  And they are right that ObamaCare can’t be fixed.

(Related: Ramesh Ponnuru previously took down Ross Douthat’s ideas for fixing ObamaCare.)

(Also related: CNN has signed Frum to provide conservative commentary during the 2012 election.)

Kagan Nomination: Around the Web




Debating the Libertarian Vote







Ponnuru: Stop Socialized Medicine, in All Its Forms

As usual, National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru offers sound advice on how Republicans, etc., should approach the Democrats’ health care reforms:

Karl Rove’s WSJ op-ed on health care reflects the thinking of a lot of Republicans. He concludes, “Defeating the public option should be a top priority for the GOP this year. Otherwise, our nation will be changed in damaging ways almost impossible to reverse.” In my view, Rove is defining Republican goals too narrowly.

Congress and the president can expand federal control of the health-care system a great deal without a “public option” (that is, a new government program to provide health insurance to people who choose it). They could set mandatory minimum standards for health insurance, impose price controls, mandate that individuals or employers buy insurance, and so forth. If Republicans say that the public option is the chief defect of liberals’ approach to health care, they may be leaving themselves with no rationale for opposing these steps if the Democrats drop it—which they might just do. (Or they might cosmetically weaken the public option in various ways. They could, for example, set up a “trigger” that brings the option into being only if certain conditions in the health market are met, and then design those conditions so that they will be met.)

The public option appears to be one of the biggest political vulnerabilities of the Democrats’ emerging health-care plan, but it isn’t the only one, and it shouldn’t be targeted to the exclusion of the plan’s other features—or of its general government-first orientation. Republicans ought to be making the case against individual mandates and employer mandates as well, both of which are disguised tax increases.

It isn’t incumbent on Republicans to see that a health-care bill passes Congress. To warrant conservative support, a bill should have no public option—but also no mandates and no price controls. Which is to say: No government-directed health-care system.