From listening to the conservative commentators here, it seems any expansion of coverage that requires federal subsidy is essentially a liberal idea.

You can be conservative and favor expanding coverage via charity.

You can be conservative and favor cost control … with the proviso that cost control on the government-provided healthcare side should be used as a tool to reduce taxpayer burden, and not as a means to free up money to be used for expanding coverage – ie, further expanding the reach of the federal government into providing healthcare.

And cost-control on the private side is a pathway to expanding healthcare via making healthcare more affordable via free-market mechanisms, and not by making it less expensive for government to cover more people.

The real ideological debate here is whether “increasing access” is really achievable without government playing a significant role in directly helping many afford healthcare.

balconesfault: One could say, Sinz, that this is what makes them conservatives.

With your goal of increasing access … perhaps the question is whether you should be using the term “fellow conservatives” when you discuss this particular issue.”

Nah. It’s just fine to worry about costs without it being a case of “we’ve got ours, Jack.” Besides, the two issues are bound together – you’re not gonna be able to insure more people without dealing with cost. And while you’re right, I don’t care what it costs when I’m bleeding, that’s hardly the standard for making a sensible decision about how we’re gonna do things.

Scott A.

One could say, Sinz, that this is what makes them conservatives.

With your goal of increasing access … perhaps the question is whether you should be using the term “fellow conservatives” when you discuss this particular issue.

What “health care reform” means to both Dems and to most Americans is guaranteed access–no American with a catastrophic chronic illness (cancer, kidney failure, Alzheimer’s, etc.) will ever be denied whatever care they need to treat their disease properly. (And no, you CANNOT get continuing treatment for such chronic illnesses in Emergency Rooms. Try getting a kidney transplant via an Emergency Room.)

What “health care reform” means to most Republicans is cost containment–that those companies and individuals who already have generous insurance plans will not be bankrupted by skyrocketing increases in their premiums. But that does nothing to increase access to health care by those who need it. There are plenty of people who cannot get health insurance at all because of their pre-existing conditions. There are former policyholders whose coverage was canceled due to any excuse the insurer could invent. Yet the most hard-core conservatives, like Levin at National Review, assert that government can’t interfere with that.

Americans care about cost containment too. But they care more about getting health care before they care about the cost of it. How do we know? Because almost no one will turn down the care they need to cure their illness, just because it may cost a lot of money.

So I think it’s safe to say that most of my fellow conservatives just don’t care about increasing access. They care only about holding down the costs of those who are already generously insured.

I know it doesn’t go to heart of your post, but I gotta argue with this in passing. First, communism is dirt stupid (among other things) and it doesn’t work *anywhere.* But if we pretend to take it seriously for a minute, small groups are the worst place for communism, because the many problems of it can’t be hidden by transferring those problems out of sight.

On to the rest:

“Do you really think the people of Detroit get the same police protection as the people in Beverly Hills? And don’t you think, in order to achieve the same level of protection, that many, many other things would need to be dealt with to bring this kind of equality if it were possible at all?”

The point here isn’t to be perfect, or perfectly fair. Government – and for that matter, free markets – is a blunt instrument. If Republicans decide to move past ‘no,’ (to take the author’s thesis) they just have to do better. In my view, you can stand a long way from theoretical perfection and still make the system better.

Scott A.

Only a deaf, blind, dumb democrat or leftie could propose such nonsense and expect anyone outside their echo chamber to believe them.

I think that’s why American voters (no, not ACORN wannabe voters) have shifted and a majority see the GOP as having the best ideas on medical insurance and cost controls. The one item that is missing from the list others have put forward on GOP Health Care Reform is Sen Alexander’s proposal to provide catastrophic medical coverage for the uninsured.

Hardly a canard of Just Saying No. That approach might have worked for drugs and sex… well, except for Clinton, Spitzer, Edwards, Kennedy… oh well.