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The Spectacle Blog
In their ongoing debate about Romneycare, David Frum has penned a remarkably obtuse response to AmSpec alum Phil Klein. Frum points and sputters at this line by Phil:
Some of us simply don’t believe that the way to fix our health care system is for the government — whether at the federal or state level — to mandate, regulate and subsidize the purchase of health insurance.
Frum then goes on to list all the ways government at all levels has subsidized and regulated health insurance for a long time. But it’s pretty obvious Phil is arguing that a new patchwork of mandates, regulations, and subsidies won’t solve the health care system’s biggest problems right now rather than calling for the repeal of every single health-related law ever enacted. Creating a freer market in health care doesn’t mean absolutely zero government role any more than a free market in food means absolutely zero regulations or subsidies.
Frum’s own post suggests this isn’t as radical a proposition as he makes it out to be. Despite his laundry list of government regulations and subsidies, the health care system still has problems with cost and access right now. Noting the tax expenditure on behalf of employer-provided health care benefits, Frum writes that the “ill effects of this subsidy are pretty notorious by now.” But somehow the solution to this notorious problem can only be found in the thin space between Romneycare and Obamacare.
It’s true that many conservative health care policy wonks supported an individual mandate, and some center-right politicians went along. But the idea that there was a widespread conservative commitment to the mandate is largely a fantasy. The most conservative alternatives to Hillarycare in 1994 did not include a mandate. Conservative advocacy of the mandate outside health care wonk circles was relatively rare. It might never have left the realm of privatized lighthouses if Bob Dole hadn’t been allergic to policy and Newt Gingrich hadn’t been erratic.
Most of the Republican politicians who signed on did so only because they didn’t think seriously about health care reform and were grasping for some alternative to the Democratic proposal du jour — which they would immediately drop once the latest health care debate was over. Even the most significant exception to this rule, Mitt Romney, originally proposed a bond rather than a mandate.
Finally, Frum bizarrely implies that Phil is among a group of conservative writers who “espouse positions much more radical than they held four years ago.” I was working with Phil four years ago when he wrote this:
[S]ome Republicans have decided to enact essentially liberal reforms, arguing that this is the only way to stave off more intrusive measures. Along these lines, President Bush signed the largest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society in the form of the Medicare prescription drug bill. As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney imposed mandates requiring every citizen to purchase health insurance, creating a state-managed system that is wildly over budget just two years after being signed into law. And in spite of such compromises, the liberal charge for national universal health-care legislation is fiercer than ever.
We both opposed Romneycare at the time it was enacted and Phil was writing against mandates before Obamacare was a gleam in Nancy Pelosi’s eye — and back when Barack Obama still agreed with us about the individual mandate rather than David Frum.
Teflon93 | 8.5.12 @ 7:09PM
If you think this is bad wait until you hear that gay marriage is now a conservative idea. Surely that is next.
Nick| 8.5.12 @ 7:10PM
I'm sorry, Mr. Antle, but, since I could care less what Frum has to say about anything, his thoughts on Mr. Klein concern my not one whit.
Thank you for effort, though.
BD57| 8.5.12 @ 7:51PM
@ Jim ....
Eventually, you'll realize Frum being obtuse isn't all that remarkable ....
Sjccoach| 8.5.12 @ 8:04PM
Why anyone wastes time writing about David Frum and what he has to say is beyond me. Mr. Frum is as conservative as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Find something else to write about.
Kingofthenet| 8.5.12 @ 8:11PM
Looks like one of you FAR right wing nut jobs shot up that Sikh Temple, in retaliation for 9/11 who would have thought?
Sjccoach| 8.5.12 @ 10:25PM
How do you know this? Prove your statement.
Libertyinfinite| 8.5.12 @ 10:54PM
Liberals don't actually use truth, ever, so you asking for proof from this guy is like asking the American People to throw off the tyranny that is over them. Both never gonna happen. Liberals have very shallow minds, & right now because we've been trained to, the rest of us do whatever they want us to. It's a sad sort of end for America.
But anyway, trolls are liars, without a care.
Sjccoach| 8.5.12 @ 11:22PM
You are right. Still these people need to challenged. Too often conservatives ignore what they say and let them carry the day.
Teflon93 | 8.6.12 @ 9:31AM
Looks like you're simply disappointed Jews weren't being killed.
Jack in Wi| 8.5.12 @ 8:40PM
David Frum is a nasty unpatriotic guy who pretends to be a conservative. Who did he think he was reading out fine consevatives because they didn't agree with him. He should go back to Canada and stay there.
Nick| 8.5.12 @ 8:58PM
"David Frum is a nasty unpatriotic guy who pretends to be a conservative."
Just like you, Jackboot!
Reggie Love| 8.5.12 @ 10:24PM
Frum is a Canadian. He has grown up with a big dose of socialism and little freedom. It is not surprising he holds such views.
Libertyinfinite| 8.5.12 @ 10:26PM
I just glad that Mitt Romney never wanted a government take over of our health care system at any level. It's good to know that he also refused gay marriage. Just like he keeps yelling about today. Thank god the right has such a consistently conservative, hard core ba dass for a nominee.
(the above is sarcasm. Sorry, I read Mark Twain allot & I can't help myself)
Fiscal| 8.6.12 @ 11:10AM
Frum is certainly right about a couple of things, but his conclusion doesn't follow. You can't have a "free market" in group health insurance because it is so highly regulated. Free markets require a relatively unfettered ability to provide unique products, and you can't do that with health insurance. The statement about selling health insurance across state lines is also nonsense because state regulations require that each policy be approved by them including rates. There can't be a way to get significantly lower cost policies and most unknowledgeable people and legislators don't understand this.
That aside, the law requires hospitals and doctors to service all patients for emergencies and they are not paid for this. This amounts to what seems to be an illegal tax on doctors and hospitals and needs to be stopped.
The big financial problem with government is that we don't tie costs with revenues. There is nothing to force a balanced budget and with health care, we don't pay for government required services. Are mandates the answer? Here is where Frum loses his case. Where government mandates the services of private individuals and institutions, the federal budget needs to pay for it -- i.e., we need to balance costs and revenues. Therefore, it needs to be a part of taxation -- not mandates.