[digg-reddit-me]Steven Pearlstein began his much–remarked column yesterday morning with a basic observation that most deficit-hawk opponents of Obama’s “experiment” with health care reform don’t seem to acknowledge:
Among the range of options for health-care reform, there’s one that is sure to raise your taxes, increase your out-of-pocket medical expenses, swell the federal deficit, leave more Americans without insurance and guarantee that wages will remain stagnant.
That’s the option of doing nothing…
I have yet to see any opponent of health care reform acknowledge that our current health care system is unsustainable and getting worse, or to acknowledge that the situation has reached a point where it undermines the very legitimacy of America’s model of the state.
Opponents of any of the Democratic health care reform proposals often argue that they are actually in favor of reform – just not this “fast” and not any of the plans being considered at the moment. They don’t have much of a response as to why they showed no concern for this issue when those more inclined to accept their ideas were in power. There have been some attempts to come up with an alternative health care reform, but it doesn’t seem like any actual plan will be offered. For example, Representative Roy Blunt, head of the GOP’s Health Care Solutions Group, is suggesting that no plan will be offered by the Republicans as he asks rhetorically:
[W]hy start diverting attention from this really bad piece of work they’ve got to whatever we’re offering right now?
This is good politics – as long as you’re not serious about reform. As long as your goal is to “break” Obama rather than to fix health care and our growing deficit problem.
I try to take things that people I disagree with politically seriously, assuming their good faith on the issue. But if opponents of the reforms on the table now don’t offer an alternative, talk about “breaking” the Democrats, and refuse to acknowledge the basic fact that the status quo which their opponents are trying to reform is leading to a disaster – all while simultaneously blaming Obama for this looming disaster – what other explanation is there for this behavior than “bad faith”?
3 replies on “The Option of Doing Nothing on Health Care”
[…] This is the status quo that we need to change. As Steven Pearlstein explained: […]
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