The GOP's Non-Existent Health Care Plan

The GOP still doesn't have a health care plan. They never have. This has rarely seemed to bother them, or the media. It's been pointed out again, though, this time by Harry Reid. Maybe it'll get some coverage this time.

This comes via John Cole, who has some thoughts on the enduring myth-making around nasty partisan and policy dunce John McCain and his magical kumbaya powers.

Remember Republican hack Alex Castellanos telling Alan Grayson on CNN that the GOP did so have a health care plan? In addition to Castellanos making dubious claims, it turns out CNN failed to disclose Castellanos's ties to the insurance industry and the GOP campaign to kill health care reform. Speaking of Grayson – who movingly read stories of the dead on the House floor – there's a money bomb movement for him.

Why can't the GOP produce a health care plan? One answer is that they don't want to. Another is that they can't. As Anonymous Liberal points out, "The problem the GOP faces is a very simple one: it is impossible to translate their "principles" into a functional plan." The same goes for most movement conservative policies. Conservatives have opposed Medicare since its creation, and have constantly tried to slash it or destroy it altogether. Yet in the past few months, some prominent Republicans have pretended to champion the program, and claim to be protecting it against those evil Democrats. Added to this hypocrisy is the glaring incoherence of the GOP defending Medicare, a government-run health care program, while denouncing the evils of a national... government-run health care program. The lack of consistency and coherence is one of many tip-offs that they're bullshitting.

On the ideology front, we can see the same trend in the election in New York's conservative 23rd District. The local Watertown Daily Times has decided to endorse the Democrat, Bill Owens, over the right-wing teabagger Douglas Hoffman:

Mr. Hoffman is running as an ideologue. If he carries out his pledges on earmarks, taxation, labor law reform and other inflexible positions, Northern New York will suffer. This rural district depends on the federal government for an investment in Fort Drum and its soldiers, environmental protection of our international waterway and the Adirondack Park, and the livelihood of all our dairy farmers across the district, among other support. Our representative cannot be locked into rigid promises and policies that would jeopardize these critical sectors of our economy.

Again, this lack of grounding in reality is the case for most conservative policies.

On the incoherent, dangerous bullshit front, this also precisely describes Joe Lieberman. He's whining that people question his motives and won't debate him on substance when he's repeatedly shown he has no principles and no substance. His excuses for opposing reform (despite campaigning on it in the past) have kept shifting, and have never been coherent or sensible on their own, either. He is a corrupt shill for the insurance industry. His current position is radical and unconscionable. But for Lieberman, the only agenda is promoting Joe Lieberman.