Moving Forward by Moving Backward

Interesting post by John Cole at Balloon Juice:

I read somewhere that the fact that our seniors are all covered by medicare really makes health care reform difficult. When the most reliable voting bloc already has their coverage paid for by the state, all the Republicans have to do is peel off a few other haves and convince the old folks that Obama wants to euthanize them.

Now, actually, this gives me a great idea. If the Blue Dog-pubblekin coalition does manage to block substantive health care reform, perhaps we should just allow them to have what they want: complete free-market health care. Given that the US government covers better than half the health care costs in the country, I'll bet the seniors would love them some progressivism real quick. And I would love to be a CIA wiretapper listening in on a senator duking it out with his private insurer: "Whaddya mean, you have reason to believe my gonorrhea was a 'pre-existing' condition?"

Funny. It looks like the surest and quickest way to get what most Americans want would be to let them have what the pubblekins want them to have for a week or two.