The Mitch-mania has continued since the Indiana Governor’s admission last week that he’d consider running for President.
Seeing as he’s been the central point of so much of my Governor Envy series, I’m finding myself quickly migrating towards preferring him over the other potential contenders.
Daniels wasted no time taking advantage of his increased profile by submitting a column to the Wall Street Journal that dissects what he has done with health care as Governor.
The Indiana experience confirms what common sense already tells us: A system built on “cost-plus” reimbursement (i.e., the more a physician does, the more he or she gets paid) coupled with “free” to the purchaser consumption, is a machine perfectly designed to overconsume and overspend. It will never be controlled by top-down balloon-squeezing by insurance companies or the government. There will be no meaningful cost control until we are all cost controllers in our own right.
Americans can make sound, thrifty decisions about their own health. If national policy trusted and encouraged them to do so, our skyrocketing health-care costs would decelerate.
Additionally, Ross Douthat has a great column in the New York Times that highlights yet more of the reasons why some activist Republicans seem to be slowly warming up to a Daniels candidacy.
Check him out. An Anti-Obama sounds awfully good right about now.
