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The WSJ's editorial this morning on Medicare is worth highlighting. It's about political courage. The editors ask whether Paul Ryan's Medicare reforms have gone too far and answer the question in the negative.
Entitlement reform is the hardest challenge in politics, which is one reason we oppose all new entitlements. But Republicans now tempted to retreat at the first smell of cordite need to understand that they are taking even larger political and policy risks than Mr. Ryan is.
Playing it safe and trying to introduce reforms at the edges, the editors argue, haven't helped Republicans in the past few decades. Medicare Advantage, HSAs in the 2003 drug bill, and continual talk about tort reform haven't gotten to the core issue: controlling prices vs. limiting how much we contribute to seniors each year. The half measures, they say, have in some ways paved the way for ObamaCare. I think they're right, and they're also right to say:
The political forces unleashed by ObamaCare will grow unimpeded if Republicans now retreat from offering an alternative. Once the White House's efforts to limit costs by fiat fail—as they inevitably will—liberals will turn to even harsher controls. This future is already emerging in post-Mitt Romney Massachusetts, and also in Vermont, which wants to move to single government payer.
So we're in a fairly simple-to-grasp place: the choice is between what Ryan is proposing (or a close cousin) and what Obama has proposed. Dancing around the edges or pretending there's some safer middle will only make things worse. And it would be a failure of political courage. They conclude:
Mr. Gingrich has done great harm to his party and the cause of reform with his reckless criticism of Mr. Ryan, forfeiting any serious claim to be the GOP nominee. But equally as culpable are the self-styled conservative pundits who derided Republicans for dropping the reform mantle during the Bush years but now tremble that Mr. Ryan has gone too far.
The reality is that Medicare "as we know it" will change because it must. The issue is how it will change, and, leaving aside this or that detail, the only alternatives are Mr. Ryan's proposal to introduce market competition or Mr. Obama's plan for ever-tightening government controls on prices and care. Republicans who think they can dodge this choice are only guaranteeing that Mr. Obama will prevail.
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