The Search for the Political and Health Care Center

On weekends,  I engage in two activities:

One,  I read the Wall Street Journal on Saturday and the New York Times on Sunday

Two,  I watch PBS on Saturday and Fox News on Sunday.

Seeking the Center

What am I doing?  To use California Governor Jerry Brown’s expression,  I row the political canoe a little on the Right and a little on the Left, to stay in the Center.  I am searching for that Mythical Center of America, where right and left converge.   I am looking for that Magical Mix of Checks and Balances, which the Constitution promised to balance powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. 

Four Goals

To me the coming election and the fate of ObamaCare are all about  achieving  four goals:

·         Limiting the money we can spend  to advance the  agenda of government control and making Social Security and health care entitlements sustainable. 

·         Advancing the cause of free markets and free choice  by limiting the power of government to regulate, to tax, and to slow and cripple economic growth.

·         Providing equal opportunities of all citizens to realize  the American dream of individual liberties.

·         Determining, through open debate, discussion, and votes, the Center of the American belief system in society and government.

Center Right

I am a center right person.   

I  believe government  has  a  fundamental indispensable role to play  in protecting citizens against  business abuses  and funding a health care safety net.  But doubling of the national debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion over the last 8 years is too much,  so is the unsustainable  growing CMS expenditures of $1 trillion,  so is the projected ObamaCare cost of $2 trillion over the next 10 years, and so is President Obama’s habit of unilateral executive actions, including  passing of ObamaCare without a single Republican vote.

I also have these beliefs; that  private enterprise and private markets  are key to economic prosperity and are the only  proven historical  way, to use John Kennedy’s  phrase, to lift all economic  boats; and that the intent of the Constitution was that the House of Representatives could  provide the money to approve of Executive Actions before those actions can be carried out. 

Checks and Balances, in That Order

In other words,  as a Center Right person,  I believe in Checks and Balances,  in that order.

On health care issues,   the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act  has not protected the middle class citizens of this middle class nation,  nor,  with its 8 year track record of relentlessly increasing costs, and escalating premiums and deductibles,  has it made health care more affordable.   And finally, ObamaCare has created a situation that has spawned a growing physician shortage and decreased access to care and choice of physicians.  

What is good or rational about  subsidized health care for 12.7 million citizens  if it makes health  care unaffordable for the 180 million unsubsidized Americans not on Medicaid or Medicare?    The answer to that question is at the core of the debate about where the Center of American politics and American Core Beliefs  should reside.