GOP Missing in Action on Health Reform

Sen. Ron Wyden has sold to the Democratic leadership an amendment that would enable more employees to cash out their employer-provided benefits and buy their own insurance policy on a health exchange. This is an idea that conservative economists originally made the case for. Why then is the GOP leaving it to a Democrat to press for such reforms?

Sen. Ron Wyden has sold to the Democratic leadership an amendment that would enable more employees to cash out their employer-provided benefits and buy their own insurance policy on a health exchange.

This seems a great idea - and even more, a great idea for conservatives. Remember, it was conservative economists who established the case for the irrationality of the whole employer-provided benefits system. It's been a crazy feature of this year's debate that conservatives keep backing themselves into positions they did not believe two years ago and won't believe two years from now. Now we are in the ludicrous position of opposing curbs on Medicare spending, opposing global budgeting for health systems, opposing studies of comparative effectiveness -and championing the employer-provided system that Milton Friedman regularly excoriated as the source of all trouble in the American health market.

Why is it left to a Democrat like Wyden to press for individual purchase within a prudently regulated health marketplace?