Greenbeard
Gold Member
A fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute makes it today.
The counterargument to Obama used to be that the policy was perfectly fine, it just wasn't permissible to do it as a federal-state partnership (though, arguably, Romney's version already was, since it needed federal support). We found out in June that isn't the case and that Obamacare is just as constitutional as Romneycare. So now all that's left is the policy discussion and that's actually quite amenable to conservative principles.
The Conservative Case for Obamacare
The counterargument to Obama used to be that the policy was perfectly fine, it just wasn't permissible to do it as a federal-state partnership (though, arguably, Romney's version already was, since it needed federal support). We found out in June that isn't the case and that Obamacare is just as constitutional as Romneycare. So now all that's left is the policy discussion and that's actually quite amenable to conservative principles.
The Conservative Case for Obamacare
IN the partisan war sparked by the 2008 election, Republicans conveniently forgot that this was something many of them had supported for years. The only thing wrong with the mandate? Mr. Obama also thought it was a good idea.
The same goes for health insurance exchanges, another idea formulated by conservatives and supported by Republican governors and legislators across the country for years. An exchange is as pro-market a mechanism as they come: free up buyers and sellers, standardize the products, add pricing transparency, and watch what happens. Market Economics 101.
In the shouting match over the health care law, most have somehow missed another of its obvious virtues: it enshrines accountability yes, another conservative idea. Under todays system, most health insurers (and providers) are accountable to the wrong people, often for the wrong reasons, with the needs of patients coming last. With the transparency, mobility and choice of the exchanges, businesses and individuals can decide for themselves which insurers (and, embedded in their networks, which providers) deserve their dollars. They can see, thanks to the often derided benefits standardization of the reform act, what they are actually buying. They can shop around. And businesses are free to decide that they are better off opting out, paying into funds that subsidize individuals coverage and letting their employees do their own shopping, with what is, in essence, their own compensation, relocated to the exchanges.
But perhaps the clearest indication of the conservative economic values underlying the act is its reception by many Democrats. The plan has few champions on the left precisely because it is not a government takeover of health care. It is not a single-payer system, nor Medicare for all; it does not include a public option, a health plan offered by a federal insurer. It is a ratification of market ideas, modified to address problems unique to health insurance. [...]
Clear away all the demagogy and scare tactics, and Obamacare is, at its core, Romneycare across state lines.