Can anyone suggest a good purpose in Frum's
writing this:
What would it mean to "win" the healthcare fight? For some, the
answer is obvious: beat back the president's proposals, defeat
the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat
itself.
The problem is that if we do that . . . we'll still have the
present healthcare system. . . .
We'll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational
features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the
expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the
Republican party exists to champion.
Not a good outcome. . . .
There's more
in that vein, if you'd care to read it. What Frum's analysis
neglects, it seems to me, is the possibility that the Left knows
what it's doing in pushing for ObamaCare. If defeating
ObamaCare would not be a victory for conservatives,
then why is the Left pushing so hard to pass it? Is the "status
quo" so "irrational" and "underperforming," does Frum mean to say
that ObamaCare would be a genuinely beneficial reform?
On the other hand, if a massively expensive government takeover
of the health-care industry is bad policy -- and conservatives
are unanimous in saying so -- then why does Frum seem so eager to
discourage and demoralize opponents of ObamaCare? Frum's "New
Majority" strategy looks like what some would call the
Vichy Republican response.
