Ideological centrism

I had intended to write a quick line recommending this post by Matt Yglesias. But fortunately for me Josh Patashnik re-emerged at The Plank to write this tortured (and all too convenient) rejoinder proving Matt's point, and now I have more to say. Matt's point is pretty simple: The Lewin group analyzed a bunch of the health care proposals floating around Capitol Hill and found, strikingly and inconveniently, that the one that would most decrease cost and increase coverage--the Stark plan--also happens to be one that most broadens the governments role in providing care. Matt writes:

Some folks, of course, will oppose the Stark plan because they’re right-wingers who don’t want to expand health care coverage. And some folks, will want to focus their energies on other, worse, plans because those plans have a better chance of passing. But what’s incredibly frustrating is that a lot of people who claim to want to change public policy to expand health care coverage and better control health care costs will nonetheless fail to embrace Stark’s plan or anything similar for no real reason other than ideological posturing. It just can’t be the case, as a matter of centrist dogma, that the best solution is actually the most left-wing solution. It’s a far more ideological stance than anything you’ll ever hear from Pete Stark or from me. But the people hewing to it will insist on being called pragmatists.

Josh responds:

No doubt there's some number of people of whom this is true. But, of course, there are also entirely valid reasons for a pragmatist to oppose Stark's plan--the fear that it will reduce innovation in the health sector, for instance, or produce an avalanche of lobbyists descending upon Washington to convince Congress to change the nation's behemoth of a health plan to benefit them. (That is, one must look at the totality of the circumstances--simply agreeing that "more coverage" and "lower costs" are generally desirable doesn't mean those are the only factors to be considered.)

Goodness, I never imagined that under the Stark plan, we'd have to contend with health care lobbyists! Certainly that's reason enough to stick with the status quo, or settle upon a different, more centrist plan--anything to avoid the specter of health care lobbyists mucking things up!

Look, if there are grounds for critiquing Matt's post, I'd say that a lot of the people who slavishly adhere to centrist policy ideas don't necessarily do so out of an ideological commitment to those policy ideas, but rather out of a commitment to the idea that we desperately need more political comity in this country. Like it or not, a lot of our political leaders don't want the government to step in and gut a multi-billion dollar a year, private industry, and the Stark plan would really piss those people off.

But if that's the argument then let's have it! Or else let's hear why, say, the Wyden plan would be preferable despite it's greater cost. Or why the Stark plan will not, in the foreseeable future, be able to overcome the filibuster. There must be some positive argument that people will be better off in the near and long term under a plan other than Stark's. Pretty much anything would be more germane to the larger health care debate than are laughable post hoc rationalizations like the danger that people might lobby Congress for outsize access to high-quality health care.