Health Care BS

Dick Armey has a good op-ed in the WSJ about the cowardice of congressional Republicans on health care reform. Here’s the money quote:

Rather than promoting the principles of consumer choice, individual responsibility and provider competition that would transform our broken health-care system, key Republicans are bowing to political pressure and signing on with the government-run health-care Democrats.

And, as has often been the case in the past, Senator Charles Grassley is “leading” the retreat:

Mr. Grassley’s approach to health-care policy often seems to follow Mrs. Clinton’s lead. Like the former first lady, the ranking Republican on the Senate committee with primary jurisdiction over health policy has endorsed a health-care plan with an individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

As I have pointed out before, mandates are not merely intrusive—-they don’t work:

This endorsement comes in spite of clear evidence that individual mandates, besides violating an individual’s right to choose, actually drive up health-care costs. In Massachusetts, which recently adopted a mandate of its own, skyrocketing cost overruns are currently projected at around $2 billion.

Sadly, Grassley is not the only Republican to endorse this profoundly bad idea:

Six other Republican senators – Mike Enzi (Wyoming), Bob Bennett (Utah), Judd Gregg (New Hampshire), Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) and Mike Crapo (Idaho) – have either introduced or co-sponsored bills that require mandates.

Ironically, this is not merely bad policy, it is a losing strategy. And it’s not like there isn’t a better alternative:

Both our families and the GOP can win by expanding Health Savings Accounts, by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, by doing away with tax policies that encourage third-party payment systems and by embracing health-care price disclosure.

However, pursuit of a strategy empasizing these policies requires testicular fortitude—-something sadly lacking among congressional Repubkicans these days.