In Sickness and In Wealth

Last Tuesday, at the weekly bloggers’ briefing hosted by the Heritage Foundation, Reps. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) unveiled their vision of substantive health care reform as a competing model to use against the currently stalled Democratic version. In the process, Reps. Shadegg and Blackburn exposed some little-known facts about previous liberal experiments with health care, and detailed a straightforward, common-sensical set of answers for the oft-cited rising prices.

In their respective talks, Reps. Shadegg and Blackburn focused on different but complimentary elements of the Republican argument for their alternative plan, with Rep. Shadegg detailing the constructive and theoretical arguments for the plan and Rep. Blackburn detailing the historical arguments against the Democratic plan. During his speech, Rep. Shadegg continually emphasized the role played by over-consumption in health care costs. “If someone else is paying for it, there is overconsumption,” Rep. Shadegg said, comparing the current situation with employer-provided health care to the behavior of children in candy stores. “If I told the clerk to just go ahead and put whatever they want on my tab, [my kids] would buy everything they wanted,” Rep. Shadegg said. “The reason costs are going through the roof is because people are overconsuming ‘cause they think someone else is paying for it.”

Shadegg also detailed the role of unions in the current problems with health care. “Under the current system, your employer negotiates with the unions, but not you,” Rep. Shadegg said. What this means for the consumer is that while unions get what Rep. Shadegg called “gold-plated health care plans” for all their members, there’s no way for the members to complain that these health care plans don’t meet their individual needs.

By contrast, the plan proposed by Rep. Shadegg would give employees the ability to choose whether to keep their employer’s package or buy health care for themselves. For those that chose the latter, Rep. Shadegg explained that there would be varying tax breaks for all levels of income and “subsidies for the poor.”

However, when pressed on eliminating both employer-based health coverage and allowing competition across state lines, two remedies touted by free market advocates, Rep. Shadegg seemed hesitant. “Under [Coburn-Ryan], the Government tells you what’s best for you and doesn’t give you the choice to keep your employer’s plan,” Rep. Shadegg said. “I want to put you in the drivers’ seat.” On the subject of competition across state lines, Shadegg showed slightly more enthusiasm, but suggested the idea was politically unfeasible because “the disease groups hate it.”

Rep. Blackburn then proceeded to take the floor. In contrast with Rep. Shadegg’s optimistic speech, Rep. Blackburn used a combination of difficult facts and biting wit to skewer the Democratic approach. “We have a timeline we have to meet,” Rep. Blackburn said mockingly of the Democratic leadership’s approach. “It doesn’t matter if we are thoughtful. We just have to meet this timeline.”

Rep. Blackburn then began her analysis of the historical roots of the current health care debate. “This is not a new issue,” Rep. Blackburn said as a preface. “This is something that the Left has been working on since Medicare and Medicaid.”

According to Rep. Blackburn, all experiments with socialized medicine on the scale of the current plan have failed. Her prime example was the Tennessee system known as TennCare. “By 1999, TennCare consumed every new dollar of revenue,” Rep. Blackburn said. “If we put this in place at the national level, it will lead to the liberals saying ‘it’s too big to fail.’”

When questioned about whether the health care bill currently being proposed by President Obama might involve elements of behavioral engineering, Rep. Blackburn struck her most defiant pose of the afternoon. “I dare anybody to try to put a tax on the Hershey bar,” she said, drawing loud laughter from the assembled audience.

Mytheos Holt is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.