... while Democrats might very well need a Newt Gingrich of their own, what they really need if they want to win back control of Congress is a tectonic shift they can take advantage of — and so far I just haven't seen any big, pent-up frustration on the part of center-right voters that might turn large numbers of them into center-left voters instead. It'll be healthcare eventually, but in the meantime I'm stumped.
Maybe, but my guess is that the big business/big government/K Street wing of the GOP is already trying to figure out how to do some version of Hillarycare-lite. In April of last year, I blogged about GM CEO Rick Wagoner's desire to shift GM's healthcare legacy costs on to the taxpayer:
Wagoner mentioned health care in answers to 5 questions, including one that asked what GM's problems were other than health care costs!
Remember the old saying, what's good for GM is good for the country? It was never really true, but it hid a deeper truth; namely, that what GM thinks is good for it will soon become national policy.
Public choice theory teaches us that legislation is a commodity sold by politicians to well-organized interest groups (to grossly oversimplify things). In 1994, Hillarycare died because powerful interest groups were lined up on both sides of the issue, with the main business lobbies lined up against it. So there was no sale.
I predict that the next time a universal single payer plan gets to the policy table, however, that business will be first in line to back it. When you read interviews like the one Rick Wagoner gave the Journal, one can but conclude that business is itching to shift health care costs off their books and onto the American taxpayer.
GOP-sponsored federalization of health care is coming as sure as day follows night. And it'll be one more nail - or maybe a whole bunch of nails - in the coffin of small government.
