Conservative Populists Don't Need Time Travel to Be Incoherent.

Matt Yglesias observes the appealing incoherence of the Right, in contrast to the coherent but politically unpleasant and morally questionable policies that the administration has been forced to carry on to prevent economic collapse. Matt observes that the conservative message is predicated on time travel, but as his commenters point out, much of the bad bank policy began before Obama was even president.

A more relevant example is health-care reform, where the administration has made a ton of what are essentially sweetheart deals with insurance companies and Big Pharma and even bought off most of the physicians in order to get universal coverage and deal with the whole wildly out of control costs issue. But, as most people realize and Luke Mitchell points in this (subscriber-only, sorry) article in Harper's, health-care reform essentially creates "a regulatory system that virtually mandates [health insurance companies] existence." This little corporate deal is necessary, Democrats reason, because Republicans would freak out about single-payer and other cheaper, more efficient ways to do health care reform, what with the socialism and all. And Republicans probably would, given that they call this public-private partnership "socialism." (Side query: When unemployment eventually does lead to revolutionaries actually seizing the means of production, will the GOP be at a loss for words?)

But this corporatism -- made palatable to the Left only by heavy-duty pro-consumer regulations and the public option -- is naturally offensive to progressives and populists of all stripes. More than one conservative has complained to me about these deals as offensive to the free market (as if insurance companies have ever operated in a 'free market'). But instead of taking advantage of this situation and calling out the Democrats on creating a permanent insurance industry, conservative health care proposals are an even bigger gift to the health insurance industry -- their proposals to throw off almost all regulations, allow for many kinds of medical discrimination against customers, and basically let these firms run wild -- would be even worse for consumers. But they're free market, dammit, and it saves them the time of solving the ridiculously hard problem of actual health care reform. Even their moderates, some of whom have good ideas, can't propose them because the caucus can't even agree whether or not denying coverage based on preexisting conditions is OK.

As Matt says, "moving to a less-incoherent posture would have some real benefits, but also disrupt the current sweet deal." Unfortunately, the benefits, in the form of responsible governance, would be more for the country at large than to the Republicans themselves, so I imagine we can expect the current status quo to continue.

-- Tim Fernholz