Just Remember What Happened to Bennett

I have to give it to Orrin Hatch (aside from being much bigger in person than I imagined. Dude is 6' and solid). He had an up close and personal look at how his colleague, Bob Bennett was taken out in the Republican primary this year because he had the audacity (!) to actually work with Democrats to find a solution to health care reform. But, as is the M.O. of the Republican Party today, the price for acting like an adult, more of then than not, is being cast as a heretic and/or apostate. It remains to be seen if the Party will extract the same revenge on Hatch for acting in a similar manner. His crime:

This morning, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced the “Empowering States to Innovate Act.” The legislation would allow states to develop their own health-care reform proposals that would preempt the federal government’s effort. If a state can think of a plan that covers as many people, with as comprehensive insurance, at as low a cost, without adding to the deficit, the state can get the money the federal government would’ve given it for health-care reform but be freed from the individual mandate, the exchanges, the insurance requirements, the subsidy scheme and pretty much everything else in the bill.

Wyden, with the help of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was able to build a version of this exemption into the original health-care reform bill, but for various reasons, was forced to accept a starting date of 2017 -- three years after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect. The Wyden/Brown legislation would allow states to propose their alternatives now and start implementing them in 2014, rather than wasting time and money setting up a federal structure that they don’t plan to use.

In general, giving the states a freer hand is an approach associated with conservatives. On Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) sent a letter to the Republican Governors Association advocating exactly that. “The most effective path to sustainable health care reform runs through the states, not Washington,” he wrote. If it’s really the case that the states can do health reform better, Wyden and Brown are giving them a chance to prove it.

If the past teaches us anything about the future, Hatch better watch his rear (or, more accurately, his right).

Ezra Klein here.