You’ve heard the adage: “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” This can be true in politics, where opposing an ameliorating reform because it is not ideal means, sometimes, getting stuck with unmitigated policy disasters.
But there’s a corollary: in politics the worst is likely to emerge … when practiced compromisers succumb to fearing the best, because unpalatable, or perhaps not in line with political interests.* Trying to avoid the “best is the enemy of the good,” we’re left with the outrageously awful.
Cures worse than the disease are not uncommon. The Democrats’ “Affordable Care Act” (ObamaCare) was a clumsy, badly drafted hodgepodge designed to fix problems by doing the opposite of what made sense.
And it immediately started having ill effects, pushing up costs for many, many health-care and medical insurance consumers.
No wonder Republicans ran year after year promising repeal.
But now that Republicans have the chance for a real cure, they’re chickening out. The Senate just debuted their ObamaCare replacement. And Senator Rand Paul (R‑Ky) calls it “worse than ObamaCare.”
Why worse?
Because Republican politicians are better at promising than delivering. Fearing how those who directly benefited from ObamaCare might squawk, and how badly the GOP would be treated in the media because of this, moderates went with what they know: snake oil.
Fortunately, Rand Paul’s opposition may kill the bill. If one other senator joins Dr. Paul — and Sen. Susan Collins (R‑Maine) who announced her opposition for other reasons — in not voting for the monster, it will not pass.
Which is great, because going for a cure worse than the previous cure leaves us all with the worst possible outcome.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Like many cures. Politicians these days no longer have the knack for the necessary “spoonful of sugar” to help medicine go down. They prefer distributing just sugar pills.
7 replies on “The Worst Is the Enemy of the Cure”
The real issue is “replace” as the first premise, that any government program is better than none, is false.
.… Fortunately, Doctor Rand Paul’s opposition may kill the bill .…
Please! From your lips — and Doctor Paul’s — to God’s ear!
And then let’s get back to the original promise:
REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!
It’s hard to imagine extracting ourselves from all the government and corporate-state that infuses the HEW axis. The solution is to enable and permit voluntary-community humane alternatives, let coercive, noncaring systems die naturally.
Are you aware that you imply, correctly, that the market care more than the government “assistance”?
Republican politicians are so afraid of being called “heartless”, “homophobic” or “racist” that they’ll willingly forget any promises they ever made.
Paul, I am so concerned that while Obama Care implodes in all but a handful of states (KY is a place where it does work) this will result in a single payer system. In light of what is happening in England with little Charlie Gard, I don’t want Gov’t making decisions in my health care.
I hope Obama Care can be repealed & replaced with something that is actually affordable. But that won’t be enough, hospitals must lower their exorbitant bills, for starters. They could start by paying the exex a little less & charging $75 for a pack of gauze. Of course the drug manufacturers must be taken to task as well.
I believe when Congress must live with the health care they pass, the people will benefit. As long as they have the Cadillac of health care, there is no incentive.
Government programs, once enacted, do not go away. Like many a cancer, they grow and metastasize. Senator Paul’s opposition may kill THIS bill, but that doesn’t mean something worse won’t come out of the Congress, all in the name of ‘compassion’ or whatever excuse the public will buy.
Next is the fight over the debt limit. Can we please eliminate the posturing and get rid of the limit entirely? That way there will be no ‘furloughs’ for government employees, which translate to fully paid time off, in addition to their myriad benefits. At the very least up the limit by about $20 trillion, so that the next ten years are covered. Then watch the markets react..