Literarary license. Point being is that you have at least ventured into a rational discussion of the issue. However, tax vouchers and tax credits still amount to a form of government handout, not an orthodox conservatism. Conservztive need to start to realize that “the market” is not the answer to everything. Privatization that has crept into our military has not helped a bit. I costs way more and delivers less and you would be hard-pressed to find a soldier who is happy with it. We certainly would not let “the market” replace the Army or the Marines!
And I hope you haven’t missed the these local “conservative” municipalities have found “the market” does not work to provide government services and are cancelling those contracts. That is the problem with idealogues, they can’t see that ideology does not apply in every case.

If you read past my “exageration” of your position, you would have seen that my proposal fits within the market and the existing taxpayer burden, but is not technically a market solution. It is however, conservative in that is does not expand government or increase taxes and it does allow private enterprise to provide the end services.

What I said is that, if President Obama and the Democrats are sincere about this being a limited policy that wouldn’t swallow up those people who don’t want to be swallowed, then they should include something like a cap that would put some teeth into their promise.

If they capped it as low as 5 percent (keep in mind, this is on top of Medicaid for people at a certain percentage of the poverty level and Medicare for retirees…so we’re talking about something approaching half of Americans being on a government insurance policy) then they could make a decent case that they tried to address the concerns of Americans who are worried about government getting too large. I wouldn’t agree that this was a case of limited government — a conservative would approach this problem with vouchers or tax credits or by freeing up the market to act more rationally — but we’d have something other than their word.

Of course, none of this is actually going to come to pass…imo because the left has no interest in a limited public option.

Consider a community based health plan, locally administered by the health care providers, paid for largely by shifting the expensive emergency treatment cost to lower cost community health clinics. There may be some need for federal assitance, but the payoff of a healthy community is increased productivity in the workplace and more revenue witout raising taxes.

A public option does not have to a gold plated insurance policy. A public option is the basic health care keeps poor people’s children from having damaged brain functions and the burden of violence and crime that results – billions saved on prison and courts. A public option is the basic health care so when people you may not like have sick children, they go to a clinic instead of the school to breath death on your children. A public option is the place where the least of us have a place to get some basic humanitarian treatment, as Jesus would have wanted a Christian society to provide. A public option is the regular checkups for early detection and treatment instead of expensive treatments to be paid for later by government funds. Who do you think pays the bills for “indigent patients”? Perhaps you think the churches are still in the healing business? Tax money!

You see the money really is there and you have paying for it all along. But instead putting your money into efficient and effective clinics, it all goes to expensive emergency room visits! I do not expect that a public option is going to cover every treatment available. Now calm yourself down there Patriot! A public option is for those who would otherwise have nothing. Subsidized housing doesn’t provide a mansion and food stamps don’t yield steak and lobster! And for those of you who have been fooled, rationing goes on every day. There are only so many doctors and only so much equipment; we can’t cure everyone. Today it is rationed economically, those who can pay do, those who can’t die. In America we let the market choose who lives and dies. Perhaps that is better than the government. That doesn’t mean we can’t provide a measure of healthcare to in all and in a way the benefits the health of those who can see a doctor,

At this point, no government enitity has proclaimed what a public option is. It is imperative to the general welfare of the nation that we reform the healthcare industry to perform fully to the benefit of those who are paying for healthcare and for the savings to be used to more effectively provide healthcare to the meager 15% who are without it. Cut 15% of the waste in the industry and your basic community-based health clinics can easily be paid for without a dime of tax money and run without federal control. Just the federal mandate for its implementation. Now there is a sensible compromise on a public option, merely a more effective way to use the money we already spend.

Rather than listen to tin-plated prophets of doom, use your God-given brains and figure out the insurance industry has no love anyone getting a cure without them having a piece of the action. They are fighting hard to get you to believe some socialist plot. Put forth the demand for a something sensible, and yes, conservative, for the public option and the let them move forward. Whenever there is a crisis in America, its always the Democrats who “come through” for the People, but they get it wrong. For once ,the conservatives should show the Democrats how to properly design and implement a social program. Too many of you conservatives are so Jeffersonian. However, when Jefferson was in office, Jefferson followed, and yea expanded, the Hamiltonian mode of Government. Jefferson prove government can work if it is done honestly and pragmatically.

Thank you for your response to my 12:54 post. To begin with, I must say that you delivered more than I was expecting. My listing of a

few of the many past transgressions of the Republican Party and the Bush Administration were more rhetorical in nature and intended more

as an overview of why I have an even greater dis-trust of all things GOP than you likely do of all things Obama (noting that you chose

to focus your lack of trust with respect to healthcare reform on what he has identified as his expectations rather than what has

ultimately been delivered and accepted). In contrast, I have the distinct advantage of hindsight with respect to the ‘accomplishments’

of the Republican Party over the past eight years (and even earlier if one traces the Laffer curve, for example, to its roots) and that

history leaves me with very little, if any, ability to trust hardly anything from the Republican party any more. By the way, I do also

note that you even leave yourself open to accept or decline the feedback from the CBO. Is that something that you did just in case the

CBO came back with results that favor Obama’s plan? Anyway, I may as well lay that issue aside for now and wait to see what Obama is

able to deliver on healthcare reform rather than speculate. It is, as you say, a matter of trust.

On to some of the other comments in your response.

First, as I recall, the derivatives de-regulation came to us in December of 2000 right before the session was ending in the wee hours of

the night as an attachment to a ‘must-pass’ government funding via Phil Gramm. Now, if this attachment had gone through a little light

of day and had been thoroughly scrutinized rather than being slipped through when the outgoing folks were literally packing their bags

and making room for the new administration… In summary, not a move by Mr. and Mrs. UBEnronS Gramm that instills trust.

Then, there is the Laffer curve. There are several points that need to be raised here. First, the Laffer curve’s initial point of

(0,0) certainly holds true since you clearly can have no tax revenue without taxes. However, the endpoint of (100,0) hinges on one key

assumption — that people will not hand over all their earnings, as taxes, under any circumstances. Clearly, that is debatable. I can

envision a world where everything one wants, needs, etc., is provided in exchange for one’s paycheck. In fact, didn’t some guy named

Pullman try something that approached such a world at one time. Granted, his vision of Utopia was a failure but that’s not to say that

it could not have worked. Now, what if one’s assumption for the endpoint were true, what does that tell us. Well, mathematically

speaking, it doesn’t really tell us as much as one might be mis-led into believing. One must first decide whether or not a continuously

differentiable function is defined between said endpoints or whether a set of discontinuous functions are more appropriate. In the first case, the simplest function would be a simple parabola with shifted origin. I believe this is the scenario that is likely assumed by most people given that the common assumption is that once you reach some magic level of taxation, you crest and then revenues decay

after that point. In reality, that case has never been proven to exist and I seriously doubt that it would apply to the general

population, regardless. I would be glad to talk in more detail on this matter if you like however, I find myself unable to trust the claims that are derived from this simplistic view of taxation and resulting revenues.

Finally, regarding the Republican legislation that defined these field trials in six metro areas in 2010, I would really like to see you

dig into that one and give us a good article to review. After all, Ive heard virtually nothing from the Republican party on this item. Do you think that they just don’t trust us taxpayers on such issues.

Thank you,

Just another TaxPayer.

Derivatives deregulation was done in 2000, with a GOP Congress and a Democratic president. I’ve never heard of anyone claiming that coal-fired power plants have health benefits. You may have a point about Iraq, though I’d point out that credulity about Saddam’s WMD programs was hardly a one-party thing.

The Laffer reference is funny to me. I don’t know why people get so hung up about the Laffer curve; it’s true on its face. If tax rates are zero, you get zero tax revenue. If tax rates are 100 percent, you also get zero tax revenue — because no one would work if all of their earnings went to pay taxes. Somewhere in between zero and 100 is the point at which tax revenues would be maximized. As far as I know, Laffer has never claimed to know where that point is. Robert Mundell, one of Laffer’s fellow supply-siders and a Nobel laureate, once told me about optimum exchange rates that “you have to grope” to find that level. So too with tax rates, I’d say…assuming that maximizing tax revenues is the goal, but that’s a whole other discussion entirely…

As for the field trials, I’d support some sort of field trials for just about any major health-policy change…the better to know what the consequences would be for the experiment writ large. Kind of like the state program in Massachusetts, whose results so far are not a ringing endorsement for government intervention.