In case you thought the GOP was ascendant...

[MadImmortalMan]

Public health care isn't an untried crackpot theory. Most of the civilized world has had some form of it for decades.

If what the US was doing was looking around the world for the most efficient, most innovative, and most effective health care strategy and implemented it that would be different.  But we are not doing that.  Why I have no idea...maybe we are too proud to borrow anything from foreigners?  Not sure.  Maybe there are no public health care strategy out there that works well...though I heard the Dutch one is something others should look at.

I think looking around is a good idea, but I doubt most countries have the demographics and structure similar to the US. Whatever we borrowed, we'd have to adapt to the federal structure and find a good way to drastically decentralize it without giving up the advantages of economy of scale. Unless the EU decided to build a single health care system that was run at the EU level and served every citizen in every euro state. We could copy that then, but I don't see that happening soon.

[KRonn]

I haven't been paying close attention lately.

Are these Tea Party/"Teabagging" Republicans supposed to be some rebranding of the Log Cabin Republicans?  I am just assuming based on the name.

You should leave your dark, dingy cave more often! Come into the light!   

[Valmy]

I think looking around is a good idea, but I doubt most countries have the demographics and structure similar to the US. Whatever we borrowed, we'd have to adapt to the federal structure and find a good way to drastically decentralize it without giving up the advantages of economy of scale. Unless the EU decided to build a single health care system that was run at the EU level and served every citizen in every euro state. We could copy that then, but I don't see that happening soon.

So we can only borrow ideas from a country identical to ours?  Well no such thing exists.

Actually that goes against centuries of American practice.  We have always used the states as the lab for these things and no one state has demographics and population identical to the entire country.  We would essentially just be doing the same damn thing we have always done but looking at other countries instead of the states.

[MadImmortalMan]

I think looking around is a good idea, but I doubt most countries have the demographics and structure similar to the US. Whatever we borrowed, we'd have to adapt to the federal structure and find a good way to drastically decentralize it without giving up the advantages of economy of scale. Unless the EU decided to build a single health care system that was run at the EU level and served every citizen in every euro state. We could copy that then, but I don't see that happening soon.

So we can only borrow ideas from a country identical to ours?  Well no such thing exists.

Actually that goes against centuries of American practice.  We have always used the states as the lab for these things and no one state has demographics and population identical to the entire country.  We would essentially just be doing the same damn thing we have always done but looking at other countries instead of the states.

Nah I just meant that it would take a lot of adaptation and tweaking.

[Sheilbh]

Sheilbh, just because conservatives put more emphasis on pragmatism does not mean that we have no ideology. 

I meant that as a complement

GOP had no input whatsoever in the stimulus, so we don't know what their ideas would have been whittled down to. Maybe that cap gains cut would have become a payroll cut via compromise.

I understand that you don't have a government in the way that a parliamentary system.  Though I think the GOP behave more like a parliamentary party than the Democrats.

I don't buy that cap gains tax cut would then be whittled down because when you're dealing with what looks like a serious recession the idea that cutting cap gains tax is really going to help is just preposterous.  It showed a party stuck in 1988.

[Martinus]

From afar, the impression of the New Labour has always been one of lack of ideology and high level of pragmatism. Perhaps it's just a feature of the British society and not any political movement.

[Sheilbh]

From afar, the impression of the New Labour has always been one of lack of ideology and high level of pragmatism. Perhaps it's just a feature of the British society and not any political movement.

Yeah but New Labour's been 12 years of the Labour movement's history (I'd also argue it was ideological).  Whereas the Tories' ideological period was 11 years in their entire history