In his speech yesterday at the Hoover Institution on health care reform, Paul Ryan said the real problem in health care is “runaway inflation” and that the Republican party needs “to coalesce around a complete reform agenda” focused on bringing down costs. This is exactly the opposite of the approach employed by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.
In simple terms, there are two ways to deal with high health costs and the problem of the uninsured. You can focus on lowering costs, and if you succeed, not only will you have achieved your immediate ends, but more people will then be able to afford coverage and fewer will remain uninsured. Or you can focus instead on covering more people, which, even if you succeed, will do nothing to lower costs and will likely raise them. Both Obamacare and Romney’s efforts in Massachusetts have employed the latter approach.
