Universal Coverage: Make it Our Bill

Republicans should embrace universal healthcare by supporting the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act. There is no another viable way to get rid of the tax-free treatment of employer-provided healthcare benefits that is severely distorting the healthcare market.

Tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance. Extending coverage to them has been a core goal of health reform proposals since the 1960s. President Richard Nixon offered a universal health plan in his first administration, but since then Republicans have hesitated to commit the nation to so costly an undertaking. Is it time to rethink? Should Republicans accept universal coverage as a goal?  We posed this question to NewMajority's contributors.

Republicans should embrace universal healthcare by supporting the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act. There is no another viable way to get rid of the tax-free treatment of employer-provided healthcare benefits that is severely distorting the healthcare market. Once you throw in on top of that greater benefits than those currently offered for families and individuals, consumer choice among competing healthcare plans, portability of health insurance, and (adding in the inevitable under-estimate of total cost) a price tag that costs a trillion dollars less in the next decade than any Democratic plan, you end up with the best bill in either chamber.

Now if only it could gather some momentum - or even get talked about. Prominent Democrats brush off the proposal completely. As far as I can tell Robert Reich, President Clinton's Secretary of Labor, frequent healthcare blogger, and champion of the public option, has not even mentioned the Wyden-Bennett bill. Neither has the prolific Paul Krugman. It's a plan that is revenue neutral, improves incentives, and offers universal coverage.

So what gives? In Professor Krugman's case, I can think of two possible answers. The first possibility is that it would move so far away from a single-payer system that eventually having such a system would be extremely unlikely, and he would rather not give it any publicity. After all, it is a very attractive sounding bill. The other possibility is that he hasn't come across it. I strongly suspect the former. (Come on professor, comment on the bill.)

Republicans on the other hand seem to want nothing more than to have President Obama's healthcare agenda fail. In their eyes, death to healthcare reform equals victory for Republicans in 2010 and possibly 2012. But encouraging President Obama to fail is only half of the equation to electoral success. Most American voters see Republicans as bankrupt idea-wise, and many of them think that our system is broken. Republicans would win back an incredible amount of voters by uniting behind a plan that offers universal coverage, no public option (how can it be an option if we mandate it?), and a price tag that doesn't add any red to the budget. Republicans could claim the anti-single payer system. They could demonstrate to American voters that Republicans have workable ideas, and that President Obama does not.

To read other contributions to this symposium, click here.