Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Yesterday, while quickly reviewing a health care proposal from four Republican Senators and the initial reaction, I linked to the first part of an evaluation by Ezra Klein. Ezra now has Part 2 up.

In general this is a huge improvement over anything the Republicans have put on the table before, even if it does not go far enough. This includes payments to individuals to pay for health care coverage (i.e. a new entitlement program) and insurance marketplaces which are regulated by the states (i.e. government take over of health care). In other words, the plan would be attacked viciously if it came from a Democrat.

I initially found out about the plan from an editorial in The Wall Street Journal and was interested in the actual proposal as opposed to all the nutty right wing rhetoric in the editorial. Unfortunately nutty right wing rhetoric is included in the actual act. Ezra says it reads like  “a health care policy paper for the Sean Hannity Variety Hour.” This is not surprising from the misleading name of the plan, the Patient’s Choice Act.

Even if it doesn’t go far enough and the authors repeat many of the right wing distortions on health care I am happy that some Republicans are at least willing to put something on the table. If Republicans are willing to discuss health care seriously as opposed to saying no to everything, I would like to have them be part of the process. It isn’t that all Republican objections to health care reform aren’t valid. While many of their claims are total nonsense, there are also valid concerns. These concerns should not dissuade us from fixing a system which is seriously broken, but their concerns should be taken into consideration.