Karl Rove diverts attention on the health bill.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal …

(Did you know that the Wall Street Journal, once a gold standard of journalistic integrity, is now owned by the same Australian transplant who owns Faux News?)

… Karl Rove tsk-tsk’s the health care bill because it’s loaded with special interest provisions. And he puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Readers of this page know that I have no great love for Harry Reid. (See What Could Be Better Than Harry Reid?) and I have to agree with Rove’s dismay about how our elected representatives are legislating for the few instead of the many, fake though his concern is. But I have three major problems with Rove’s little tantrum.

(1) Rove’s cynical hypocrisy complaining about a system that he wallowed in back when he was in power. Remember, this is the guy who had a primary role in the partisan purging of U.S. attorneys. Rove did his best to make political loyalty – not job qualification – the way the entire federal government was run. Every department and agency was put through intense and thorough politicization. His crocodile tears now are revolting.

(2) Republicans have some responsibility in what’s happening now. Barack Obama and the Democrats won a commanding mandate from voters to put a health care system in place, but the Party of No is dedicated to stopping that mandate at any cost. Political Scientist Barbara Sinclair has analyzed how much the 60 vote filibuster (being used by the Party of No to frustrate the voter’s mandate in the health care bill) was used by Democrats back when Republicans were in power versus now. She concluded that when Democrats were the frustrated minority, it was used only 27 percent of the time for major legislation. But now that the Party of No has been cast out, it’s being used 70 percent of the time. The Republicans deserve primary blame for making polarization the way things are done now.

(3) But the worst distortion in Rove’s piece is his completely one-sided analysis of cost. Health care costs $2.2 trillion in the U.S. every year. That’s $7,290 for every person and almost twice as much as the country with the second highest cost (Switzerland at $4,417 per person). At the same time, using the broadest measure of health care, average life expectancy at birth, the U.S. is worse than (in order):

Japan
Switzerland
Australia
Spain
France
Canada
New Zealand
Austria
Luxembourg
Czech Republic
United Kingdom
Portugal
Denmark

All of which have universal health coverage for their citizens. Health care in Portugal (two places ahead of us in average life expectancy) only costs thirty percent as much as health care here.

How can the Party of No defend a system as bad as this?

How does the Party of No want to fix it?

I won’t try to defend the rotten way legislation is done in the U.S. I will say that the Party of No is more to blame for the mess than the Democrats.

But there is a consolation prize for the citizens of Utah even though they did vote overwhelmingly for McCain/Palin!! Because Harry Reid is well placed to insert his own political patronage into the bill, the current version gives higher Medicare payments to hospitals and doctors in any state where more than fifty percent of the counties are “frontier counties” with population density of less than six people per square mile. That includes Nevada, of course, but it also includes Utah.

So doctors and the hospital administrators in Utah can plan on an extra Lexus – maybe even a Hummer – in their quadruple width garage!!! Doesn’t that just thrill you!!