If Republicans want to win the war over the future of the nation’s health care system, they need to do more than simply call for the repeal of Obamacare. Repeal is no doubt an essential first step. But even if the law were repealed or struck down by the Supreme Court tomorrow, the United States wouldn’t be out of the woods.
Health care costs still would eat up roughly one in every five dollars generated by the economy within a decade. And health care inflation would continue to fuel skyrocketing spending on Medicare and Medicaid, which are the main contributors to our debt burden at both the state and federal levels.
In their 2010 “Pledge to America,” Republicans vowed to “repeal and replace” the national health care law. While the GOP-controlled House voted for “repeal” shortly after taking over this January, they have yet to unveil a formal plan to “replace” the law.
Asked about this, Debbee Keller, a spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee (one of the committees that would be charged with creating health care legislation), highlighted smaller efforts such as proposed medical liability reform. “But at the end of the day,” Keller emailed, “the reality is that you cannot build good policy on top of bad, which is why repeal is so essential.”
The lack of emphasis on free-market health care reform ideas in Congress — and up until this point, in the GOP presidential race — cannot be fully blamed on politicians, who can only be expected to play to their audiences. Conservatives at the grass-roots level have been quite vocal about the need to repeal Obamacare, and Republican politicians have responded. But activists have not been very vocal in calling for alternatives.
Conservatives get fired up about issues such as taxes, guns, and judicial appointments, but they see health care as a squishy topic. Historically, the Right has become passionate about health care policy only when it comes to fighting liberal attempts to expand the role of government (as during the Clinton and Obama presidencies).
This attitude is a mistake, because conservatives’ neglect of health care policy virtually ensures future increases in government control.
Even before Obamacare passed, the United States did not have anything close to a free market for health care. The repeal of Obamacare will not create a system in which individuals have more choice over how to spend their health care dollars. Rather, this will require proactive steps to unravel the layers of government policies that distort the market and drive up costs.
One of the most effective arguments Democrats had during the health care debate was that Republicans didn’t address the issue when they had full control of the government. And if Republicans fail to offer a compelling alternative during the 2012 campaign, Obama will argue that we cannot go back to the pre-Obamacare status quo.
Even if Republicans win this current battle and repeal the law, we’ll still be left with a mess of a health care system. If Republicans don’t fill the vacuum with solutions of their own, liberals will return with a vengeance to impose their own ideas, as soon as they return to power. By that time, the crisis will be so severe that the measures they’ll take would likely be even more drastic than Obamacare.
That’s why conservatives, and Republican politicians, can’t afford to wait to get serious about health care.
Philip Klein is senior editorial writer for The Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
