Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin have a heavy rap on how to replace Obamacare over at the National Review, a piece that occasioned less than reverent comment on the left, to which Ponnuru and Levin respond, rather tartly, here.
The piece has drawn some critical responses in the past few days — from Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum, Matthew Yglesias, Jonathan Chait, and Josh Barro—which we wanted to address.
The first thing to note is that none of our critics actually defend Obamacare, and therefore none dispute the argument of the piece.
The only problem with that statement is that it is entirely untrue. The fact that smart men like Ramesh and Yuval make it tells you something. The fact that they concoct a less than generous, less than ingenuous “plan” to cover the political ass of a party (the Republican Party, that is) whose real “plan” for health care is no plan at all tells you something more.
Afterwords
It is to their credit that Ponnuru and Levin are embarrassed by the fact that the Republican Party’s sole interest these days is protecting the economic interests of the upper half of the income distribution, an interest that increases exponentially as you ascend the scale. But block-granting Medicaid, shockingly enough, will do little for the masses.
