In a new column for Kaiser Health News, I point out a strange turn that our debates over health care have taken:
Once upon a time, President Barack Obama and many others who championed his health care plan actually professed faith in the power of a functioning health care marketplace. That now seems like a distant memory, given the demonization campaign that the president and his allies have launched against House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan to inject consumer choice and competition into Medicare. But there’s no doubt that while the health law was under consideration in Congress, the president and his team wanted to leave the impression with voters that the plan they were pushing would rely mainly on market signals, not heavy-handed government control….
Meanwhile, now that their plan is law, the tune has changed. The enthusiasm for premium credits, consumer choice of private health plans and decoupling of credits from health costs seems to have waned. Indeed, it’s waned to such an extent that these are now not just bad ideas but ideas that would destroy America as we know it! … Those who previously stressed that the new health law would have a strong component of consumer choice and competition are now saying that a functioning marketplace will never work.
You can read the whole thing here.