George Bush Doesn't Care About Healthcare People

Conservative think tank guy Josh Barro tweeted something last night that deserves repeating:

The alternative to PPACA isn't "a health system reform that seeks to contain cost growth through progressive cost-sharing." It's nothing.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 3, 2012

If Republicans had any interest in an alternative model of health reform, they would have done it when they ran the government.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 3, 2012

And these are things that need to be said. As much as a bitch about the Democrats on this site, there is literally only one side of this equation that even gives the slightest fuck about making sure people have health care they can afford. The irony about Obama's legislation being written by the Heritage foundation is extra irony-y-y (not a word but stay with me) because there is no way in hell any national republican would ever try to pass this type of bill. Why? Because they don't care in the slightest about making sure people have affordable health insurance, because there is no constituency in the Republican party that demands it either.

Want proof? At the state level, there are occasionally Republican governors who didn't run for office to turn their state into a Galtian hellhole, but actually trying to find conservative solutions to real problems that states face. One of those people was Mitt Romney. Elected in Massachusetts, he used his time in office to implement a conservative solution to a problem that at the national level only matters to Democrats. The plan has been successful in some ways, and less so in others (much how I assume Obamacare will turn out), but one place it had no support was among Republicans.

When he ran for national office, by far the biggest knock on Romney was basically the ONLY commendable thing he did, which is attempt universal healthcare for his state. Of course he did it very differently than I would like, but actually caring about this issues makes him seem like Mother Teresa compared to the nihilists running against him and the "Let him die" crew voting in the primary.

So as Josh Barro (again, a conservative) pointed out, the unspoken truth here is that Republicans genuinely don't care about these issues. They never have, and they probably never will. And even the ones who would have cared 10 years ago (like Romney) see the writing on the wall that attempting anything that might help people is nearly a death sentence for your career as a Republican. So as depressing as the choice between corporate friendly pursuit of center-left ends and rule by nihilists bigots is, there is a difference.

There. That's my get out the vote message. Something tells me the Obama campaign won't be using it for a bumper sticker.