Charles Krauthammer today predicts that the Democrats will soon abandon the whole idea of using health care reform to “bend the curve” toward less explosive cost growth. He predicts they will:
more generally, abandon the whole idea of Obamacare as cost-cutting. True, it was Obama's original rationale for creating a whole new entitlement at a time of a sinking economy and a bankrupt Treasury. But, as many universal-health-care liberals complain, selling pain is poor salesmanship.
I don’t think that Democrats will do this, but I see his point. It’s hard to make even the most sensible reforms to our woefully wasteful health care system when Republicans are willing to demagogue such efforts as “rationing.” For instance, I see today, one such right-winger writes:
Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.
However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That's when the liberals will give the FCCCER regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling.
But by then, resistance will be feeble. Why? Because at that point the only remaining option will be to give up the benefits we will have become accustomed to. Once granted, guaranteed universal health care is not relinquished. Look at Canada. Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.
Oh, wait--that passage is from the same Charles Krauthammer column. So he predicts that Democrats will abandon fiscal responsibility because it’s unpopular, and then demonstrates exactly the dishonest techniques that help make it unpopular. Nice trick!