I wrote my column on it. I don't find the opposition to reform somehow illegitimate. There are many reasons to criticize the plans now congealing; and the end-result looks to me more and more like a simple extension of healthcare security to a lot of people without any real or strong mechanisms to curtail the soaring costs that are bankrupting the country and putting so much strain on US business. Of course, I belong in that archaic camp that believes it is the job of a liberal president to expand such coverage and the job of a conservative opposition to propose ways to afford it. Instead, the chairman of the GOP is making the Republican position on Medicare indistinguishable from the most cynical Democratic scare tactics, and complaining about any attempt to curtail costs. If you have to strip out of a bill a mere conversation with seniors about powers-of-attorney for end-of-life decisions, you are not interested in a serious conversation about curtailing healthcare costs.

I agree with most everything David Brooks has written on this subject. If we had a functional and serious conservative movement in this country - instead of a Poujadist mob of cynical know-nothings - we would be talking about the kind of questions David Goldhill discusses in the best single piece on the debate I have yet read - the cover-story in the current Atlantic. We'd be talking about re-thinking the insurance model for large parts of medical care, we'd be cutting subsidies for employers, we'd be empowering patients to seek better coverage with better value and providing the tools to help them make informed decisions. Instead, we're talking Hitler and Oligarhy and "taking the country back".