A CHEAPER, SIMPLER OBAMACARE PLAN?

As a frequent critic of Obamacare, I’m often asked, “Well, how would you solve the problem? Huh?” The implication is that if I don’t have a solution, I should shut up and endorse the one Democrats provided.

This is not sound policy thinking. As I am fond of saying, “The existence of a problem does not therefore imply the existence of a solution.” It is not inevitably true that there is some policy solution that would be better than the status quo, even if we really dislike the status quo. . . .

We could have spent the last four years fighting over something else progressives wanted, such as serious action on climate change.(Which is something I want, too, and no, for reasons I will explain shortly, the latest China deal doesn’t count.)

I think that from the libertarian perspective, either of these proposals should be preferable to Obamacare. I’d even argue that they should both be more appealing to progressives. But the administration didn’t want simple, modest and stable; it wanted a massive, transformational legacy. Which is why, four years later, we’re still fighting about it.

Well, it’s transformed a bunch of Democratic Senators into former Senators. That’s something.