Defeating ObamaCare: Do We Lose by Winning?

David Frum asks this question in a piece for The New Majority. Frum argues that defeating health care reform may ultimately end up with flat lining wages, "exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs which will ultimately put pressure for tax increases, small businesses and individuals priced out of the insurance market and too many uninsured will end up imposing costs on hospitals and government. Frum then goes on to argue should we win by scaring the elderly into believing their services will be cut essentially sending a warning shot to the entire political establishment the only tinkering with senior services must be to make them more generous.

Well, every party needs a pooper I guess. Seriously, I don't think winning should be looked on in terms of defeating health care reform. It goes against all that conservatives stand for to allow trillion dollar deficits looming in the future that will break the country financially. Clearly the stagnant wages held down by exploding health care costs is against what would be in the best interest of righting an ailing economy and the well being of all citizens.

Worse still, though, would be to participate in a reform that would allow any expanded role of government in health care. No reform is preferable to bad reform. Frum offers a series of reforms conservatives should favor to seek free market solutions in health care reform. These are all good suggestions and if conservatives have an opportunity to take reform entirely in that direction certainly they should. That would be a win/win. I will take the win or the win/win, but a real loss would be allowing any expansion of government in health care even by compromise. It never seems to work out the way it was intended and always makes matters worse.