A modest proposal that no one will listen to.

Learned a supreme irony today--the health insurance reform plan the Democrats are trying to get through Congress is, with a few omissions, largely the very plan the Republican proposed in 1993! Some of the biggest nay-sayers, now opposing this plan, sponsored it in 1993! Back then the idea that all should be required to obtain insurance at a fair price was touted by them as a model of "personal responsibility." Now they say that it is a violation of "liberty" to require people to obtain insurance.

What it appears to be is an abandonment of principle on their part. They are convinced they will reap short term political gain by continuing the "Party of No" thing. It is hard not to see these actions as an integral part of the partisanship that poisons everything in Washington.

In my view the smart thing for Dems to do is to dust off that old Republican plan that looks so very similar to their own, swallow hard, accept medical malpractice award caps and the other few things that the two plans don't have in common, and substitute the old Republican plan. Bring it up for a vote and quote their own speeches back at them. To get universal health coverage, curtailing malpractice awards would be well worth it. Make the system no-fault like Michigan auto insurance--to drive, one is required to have insurance that covers his own injuries. Only allow legal action on medical malpractice when the injury is permanent and affects a major activity of life, ie mobility or the ability to work. Provide for public coverage of catastrophic loss over a certain level such as $250,000. We could live with such a system; we live with it here in Michigan for auto insurance (except for the public coverage of catastrophic loss part) now.

But alas, hoping the Democrats will get smart on this point is like hoping someone will repeal the law of gravity. The parties posture, proclaim, and pretend, and meanwhile this is the only industrialized country on the planet that does not provide universal health coverage in some form or other. A distinction the Republicans can be proud of, to be sure; it belongs to them!