"Here's Why Republicans Will Never Reform Health Care"

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Here's Why Republicans Will Never Reform Health Care

by Josh Barro at Business Insider


http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-republicans-will-never-reform-health-care-2013-12

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Those problems would cluster on top of problems that arise all the time in health insurance markets, absent any public policy change: Rising prices, doctors changing what insurances they accept, employers changing their benefit offerings, whatever. Conservative health reformers would take the blame for all the problems their reforms created, and many problems they didn't, just as has happened to liberals with Obamacare.

So it's no surprise Republicans haven't enacted any of the big reforms they like to talk about. The only reforms they've been able to implement are ones that hand out new benefits without creating any losers: A new prescription drug benefit in Medicare and expanded tax advantages for health spending, such as Health Savings Accounts.

These policies haven't addressed the problems of high costs or of lack of insurance for many people under age 65. But they also haven't exposed Republicans to attack for causing people's health plans to change.

Liberals chose to reform health policy despite the political risks, because their political coalition includes the people who are most extensively screwed by the health policy status quo. Conservatives have decided that cynicism is a better political strategy, for the reasons Klein inadvertently lays out. They're probably right on the politics, but that's nothing to be proud of.


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1. That should be in the Democratic talking points...that they are brave.