I’m in an optimistic mood today, so let’s begin by assuming that ObamaCare is dead, and that the Republicans manage to achieve a majority in the House (control of the Senate still seems unlikely, even to Optimistic Mario).  OK?

The first thing that the new Republican Majority needs to do is to neuter future health care reform.  We know that the American people are against a government takeover of healthcare, and show no signs of changing their minds, yet this doesn’t stop the Democrats from periodically attempting to put such a takeover in place.  This time they nearly succeeded; it’s true that it wouldn’t be a full takeover right away, but it’s easy to see where Obama’s road would have taken us, particularly if he had been able to blitz the original bill through before the August recess.

How is it, then, the the Democrats have gotten so good at convincing America to accept their plans even though we oppose the end result?  The trick is that they use real issues, things that America actually wants to change, and misleadingly set up their bill as the solution to the problem.  If we choose to ignore those issues now that ObamaCare is dead (arguendo), we will just be setting ourselves up for future near-disasters, not to mention proving that Republicans don’t care about governing.

The Republican Majority’s first action upon taking power, therefore, needs to be real healthcare reform.  Things like rescission strike people as wrong for good reason: they are wrong.  If the Democrats (hopefully) fail to pass their bill, we need to make sure that our first priority is to rip the good pieces (however few) out of that bill as pass them separately.  There may need to be a few tweaks in the language, but I imagine that most could be passed word for word from the Democrat bill.  More importantly, we need to campaign on this platform; elect Republicans and you’ll get what you wanted to get from the Democrats, minus the radical agenda.

We should never make the mistake of thinking that just because something was proposed as part of a socialist plot, it is automatically without merit.  Yet I fear that we make this error far too often, and provide the Democrats with the opportunity to exploit these blind spots and press their agenda.  Good governance means never providing the opposition the chance to outflank you.

Taking this strategy would be good politics (campaigning on it might even be good to boost the size of the majority) and good policy.  As a side benefit, we would neuter the prospects for a future government healthcare takeover by denying the Democrats many of the openings they need to get their radical feet in the door (or hands in your pocket, if you prefer).

Some are reporting that the AARP is set to not just endorse ObamaCare, but the giant, radical House health care bill in particular.  Now we all know that the AARP can always be counted on to support anything that promises to ingratiate its members at the expense of the rest of the country, but why would they back something that would take hundreds of billions out of Medicare and destroy the Medicare Advantage plan, something that 25% of seniors rely on, entirely?

As always, follow the money.  The fact is that the AARP, through UnitedHealthcare, offers “Medicare supplement plans,” that essentially do the same job that Medicare Advantage does now, only the AARP gets a cut from each customer, plus the membership fee.  Right now, those plans only cover 2.8 million people, but you can be sure that those numbers will skyrocket once their main competitor drops the over 10 million customers they have amassed.  For the seniors who will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage thanks to Obama, but lack the resources to buy the AARP’s alternative?  Tough luck.  I guess we’d all better off if they would just learn to “die with dignity.”

Better yet, since Medicare does all of the dirty work for them, these plans will largely be exempt from the new Obama health care regulations.  Even if the government option managed to drive out all private insurers, both the AARP and United would be able to stay in the insurance business, since this is only a supplement, not a true insurance offering.  Plus, since the public option would also be pretty deficient when it comes to the business of actually providing decent health care, you can be sure that they would be willing to generously offer “public option supplement plans” (at reasonable rates, obviously) when the time comes.

It’s a shame that the AARP would squander any goodwill they have built up over time to support something that we know will be a terrible deal for seniors (not to mention everyone else) just to make a quick buck.  Although, to be fair, part of me is a little satisfied that at least someone has figured out how to make money off of the latest big government boondoggle, I just wish the AARP’s entrepreneurial initiative didn’t come at the expense of the people that business and the government are supposed to represent.

Since it seems likely that the Democrat’s health nationalization plan will include the so-called “public option,” I wanted to put down a number of questions that need to be asked to determine if the public plan would be competing fairly with real insurance companies, or if it is, as it seems, a stealth attempt to slowly build a single-payer regime.  [I will probably miss some, so feel free to add to this in the comments.]

1. Will the public plan receive a subsidy?  In other words, will non-members be taxed to benefit this one plan’s customers?
2. Will the public plan pay the same corporate taxes and tax rates as other insurance companies?
3. Will the public plan be subject to the same patchwork of state regulations as every other insurance company, or will it play by its own rules?
4. Will the employees of the plan participate in any government employee programs, be subject to public union rules, or benefit from public employee bargaining?
5. Will the public plan share any HR, purchasing, or other infrastructure with existing federal agencies? Will it build or acquire its own office or offices, and will it pay for its own utility and IT usage?
6. Will the public plan be subject to any existing marketing restrictions?
7. Will public officials be allowed to advocate for the public plan over private competitors?  Will public health organizations steer customers toward the public option?
8. Will the public plan be subject to the same financial reporting requirements?

If Obama and the other Democrats are telling the truth when they say that they are not trying to dismantle the health insurance industry, I hope they’ll use this as a guide to what they should avoid.  As I think I have made it obvious, it would be very easy to accidentally give a substantial advantage to a public option, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want to do that. Alternatively, disinterested observers in the media (of which there are many, as we know) could use this as a checklist to see whether the Democrats’ rhetoric is matching the reality of their legislation.