This book, written by a British academic who studies Conservative parties and analyzes their philosophy is published by the University of Chicago Press and reviewed in the Economist. The inspiration to blog on it comes from its support of my view that I am a conservative and that Conservatives in the U.S. have lost their traditional philosophical core base in the policies that they advocate today.
What is a traditional successful conservative? What is that core philosophy? O'Hara analysis starts with Adam Smith/Friedrich Hayek and looks at the success of Thatcher and Reagan to answer this.
The essence of conservatism is that change is welcome only for a particular purpose with a healthy dose of skepticism for untested schemes.
That strikes me as an appropriate characterization of my beliefs. So how can I support Universal Health Care and revenue increases to pay for the government?
The answer is there is role for a government and a balanced budget over the course of the business cycle is appropriate economic policy that allows the government to fulfill its basic purpose of defense, support of the economy, and a social safety net. Bush II forgot to pay for the War on Terror and Iraq Regime Change. That must be done with increases in revenues either from reductions in tax shelters (my preference) or tax rate increases. To do otherwise is proceed down a path of an untested scheme.
Now as for Healthcare, the one thing we know is the current system is broken. 50 million uninsured with the cost of their care being borne by those who buy health insurance is one reason insurance costs are so high. Having individuals pay significantly higher rates than those in groups is inherently unfair when group status is strictly determined by employer. Having insured get charged medical fees that are 30% of the uninsured fee is an unrealistic business model for customers and providers. These are all evidence that a fix is needed.
Universal Health Care is not an untested scheme. In the US we have Medicare and the VA system to demonstrate it can be done. There are many examples of it working well in other countries. Proceeding to have Universal Heath Care is not a radical scheme. The issue is how do you control the cost of it and keep it affordable for the economy as a whole. The US is in the radical nonconservative position here because we keep trying to have the private sector manage the insurance side of this with the stated shortcomings continuing. For better or worse, there is no political consensus that we should move to a true Universal Health Care system. However, with Romney/Democratic scheme we have seen moderate Republicans and Democrats try to solve the problems without radically changing the existing healthcare structure. The cost of heath care is breaking the finances of the government and a solution must be found. Repealing the Affordable Healthcare Act of 2010 without proposing a solution to the mandated Insurance Exchanges is not responsible leadership on this essential issue nor is it conservative. Rather I would call it Radical Change and what we have now is a Republican Party that only wants Radical changes that do not fit within the Philosophy of Conservatism. By wanting to starve the government of financing, leave the cost of health care unmanaged except by turning it over to the private sector which has already failed, we have a Republican party that is failing to address identified problems and advocating using untested schemes.
So I am a Conservative in the traditional sense.
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