Bobby Jindal's Terribly Bizarre (But Not Terrible) Healthcare Op-Ed

My guess is that Bobby does not want to be equated with the Party of NO.

http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/10/bobby_jindals_terribly_bizarre_but_not_terrible_healthcare_op-ed.php



Oct 6 2009, 12:32 pm by Derek Thompson

Bobby Jindal's Terribly Bizarre (But Not Terrible) Healthcare Op-Ed
Via Ezra Klein's tab dump, I see Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wrote an op-ed yesterday in the Washington Post about how Republicans should approach health care reform. It's unlikely that Republicans will approach health care reform in any meaningful way, but I was still interested in reading how Jindal, allegedly one of the unabashed wiz-kid wonks of the Republican Party, wanted to fix health care. At the end of the day, his ideas are good -- many of them are in the Baucus bill already -- but his understanding of the health care debate is just weird.

Let's start here:


Democratic plans for a government takeover are passé. The people don't want it. Believe the polls

Totally 180 degrees wrong. The polls consistently show 65 percent approval of a government-run insurance plan. In fact a public option is more popular than health care reform, and two to three times more popular than the Republican Party.


Only Democrats in Washington would propose new taxes on businesses and families in the middle of a recession, $900 billion in new spending at a time of record deficits, and increased taxes on health insurance and products to reduce health-care costs.

Not true. It's not only Democrats who would increase taxes on health insurance. Sen. McCain floated the idea of taxing employer provided health insurance in his campaign. In May 2009 (when the recession was even worse) Rep. Paul Ryan's health care plan proposed taxing those plans too. Those GOP plans would probably increase the tax on employer provided care even more than Democrats, since Republicans want to dismantle our employer-based insurance model and replace it with individual tax credits. Whether or not you like that idea, let's call it what it is: a tax to move millions of people off employer insurance rosters. Later Jindal writes...

taking the credit for stimulus money he opposed. ;-)

handed out to local officials. He's a snake, plain and simple. And he's all for ethics reform EXCEPT WHEN IT COMES TO THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE.

So I went to the DLC website, and -- such a surprise! -- there was a 1 October piece by Will Marshall praising Jindal's healthcare stance

The DLC "third way" strategy has a recognizable signature tone: it pretends to be centrist, it purrs soothing schmooze, it reinforces conservative stereotypes about Dems, and it promotes tiny incremental changes likely to have almost no effect: and Jindal's piece sounds just like that

I am holding my nose