The GOP Does Have Good Ideas, Hating Obama Gets in the Way

Ross Douthat today highlighted this issue.  Buried within the Tea Party are some commonalities with very liberal points of view.  Rand Paul favors sentencing and drug law reform.  Mike Lee has a tax reform policy that would actually help the middle class rather than cut taxes on the investor class.

I made a comment on the NYT website for the Labor Economics article I posted a couple of days ago.  I stated the only real positive step government can do for the realities of globalization and the effect on labor income is to make sure the education system works and to keep taxes as low as possible.

Well, that comment on taxes as low as possible drew a few comments which can be summed as "Why?"  There is no doubt that the will to earn more money ceases at a marginal rate of 100% and no doubt lower, so the question of why shows a serious need for education of the voters.

The Affordable Health Care Act (aka ObamaCare) was a Republican (Heritage Foundation and Romney) answer to the Democrat's quest for a single payer plan to provide Universal Health Care.  While I would prefer a Single Payer Plan, there is the question of how you manage the economics of a transition that would eliminate the Health Insurance Companies that employ thousands of people. ObamaRomenyHeritageFoundationCare doesn't create the need for that.

While the GOP works as hard as it can to kill ObamaCare by convincing young people to go without health insurance, it is amazing to me that there isn't more rebellion by parents in the GOP.  What parent does not understand that a 20 something male can get testicular cancer?  What parent does not understand their child might be in an accident, or have an infection, or any other thing where ready access to a medical professional is needed?  Who wants their child to have to pay the list price on a medical service that provides the hospital funds to pay for care for the uninsured?  Does the GOP want to repeal the Hippocratic Oath?  They didn't when Ronald Reagan signed a bill making it mandatory for hospitals to provide care to anyone.  They didn't when the Heritage Foundation designed ObamaRomneyCare.

There are 3 critical issues to controlling health care costs:  (1) get the insured into the system, (2) convert fee for service to fee for care, and (3, which is partially in 2) design a system that balances life extension possibilities with pain management.  20% of the elderly die in intensive care where 10 days of futile services costs as much as $323,000.  The ACA starts to address all of these and the GOP should be focused on battles that address where government expenses go and controlling those while designing a tax policy that provides revenues with a fair level of taxes.

The definition of fair will vary by every person effected and that design is what negotiation within a democracy is all about.