Liberal Talk Radio

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell is struggling to get support for his Schwarzenegger-like plan. Perhaps only Nixon can go to China, after all.

A health care plan like this one (or California’s, or Massachusetts’) is going to be disruptive. So it seems like, instead of trying to sort of piss of everyone, you need to win the strong support of one faction and use that support base to fight off attacks from the other factions. Otherwise you’re left alone holding the check. (How many metaphors did I just mix there?)

The payroll tax seems like the best idea here. Sure, there are some free-riders who are unemployed and still get health care, but in the end the costs would be lowered so much by getting rid of the real free-riders — the ones who don’t have health care and still wind up treated in emergency rooms — that it would end up being a net plus.

In fact, in Washington State we could even use a payroll tax as the camel’s nose under the tent (watch it, metaphor-man!) towards an eventual, necessary income tax.

Rendell’s other proposals that actually muck around with the business of health care and insurance — requiring a greater use of PAs and midwives, manditory caps on private insurers’ administrative costs, etc. — seem too heavy-handed for my tastes. (Though I do like the smoking ban.)