By Philip Klein
Democrats made a number of false claims during the national health care debate of 2009 and 2010 but one of their arguments was indisputable: When Republicans were in power they failed to advance their own vision for health care reform. With the sudden possibility the U.S. Supreme Court could strike down at least a key part of President Obamas national health care law the GOP has to make sure history doesnt repeat itself.
To be fair to elected Republicans theyre just responding to the demands of their supporters. Conservatives have traditionally become fired up about the health care issue when it comes to fighting liberal efforts to expand governments role. When a government takeover isnt a clear and present danger the issue recedes into the background for them. This is what happened in the 15 years between the failure of President Clintons health care push and the beginning of Obamas crusade.
Though there has long been a vibrant conservative activist community on issues such as guns taxes and abortion passion for proactively reforming health care has been relegated mostly to conservative think tanks and policy groups. This is incredibly problematic because the failure to address health care from a free-market perspective will make it impossible to control the growth of government.
If the Supreme Court were to strike down Obamas entire health care law in June the U.S. would still be facing unsustainable growth in health care costs. Even without Obamacare
health care spending is projected to eat up about one in five dollars in the U.S. economy within a decade.
Along with the aging of the U.S. population health care inflation is fueling the growth of entitlement spending which in turn is creating our nations long-term debt problem and crippling state budgets. If House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryans budget were enacted tomorrow its changes to Medicare and Medicaid would be a lot less effective without broader reforms to control health care costs.
Conservatives often make the mistake of suspiciously dismissing health care reform as a bleeding-heart liberal concept thats just code for big government. Yet the reality is that the U.S. already has a big-government medical system. Conservatives cannot magically create a free market in health care by merely blocking Democrats big-government system.
As things stand Republican politicians know that they can get easy applause by vowing to Repeal Obamacare! But they dont exactly bring the house down by declaring Were going to end the discrimination in the tax code against people who purchase insurance on their own rather than through their employer!
This is part of the reason why even though Republicans ran in 2010 on repealing and replacing Obamacare more than a year after taking over the House they have yet to coalesce around an alternative. This was evident when Ryans GOP budget didnt include any health care reform beyond changes to existing entitlement programs.
If the health care law is struck down Republicans and conservative activists cannot simply declare game over on health care. Liberals will never stop their push toward their eventual goal of creating a Canadian-style single-payer system in which government is the sole
purchaser of health care and bureaucrats impose cost controls.
Just as they tried again 15 years after the failure of HillaryCare Democrats will eventually find themselves in the position to advance their health care agenda even if Obamas health care law goes down at the Supreme Court and he loses in November.
The only way for conservatives to prevent this outcome is to put more pressure on Republicans to go beyond merely opposing Obamacare by advancing free-market alternatives.
Philip Klein is senior editorial writer for The Examiner. He can be reached at pklein@washingtonexaminer.com.
