As for public health-care… it should be noted first and foremost that the advocates of the single-payer system that is scaring you so much are being excluded from the process as busily as the advocates of the totally free market system that irks me so much. What we are probably going to see is Romneycare: an unfunded mandate that everyone have ‘basic health coverage’ combined with a flooding of the market with cheap health coverage that doesn’t really guarantee access to care, on the model most states use for auto insurance. It will be a huge corporate welfare windfall for insurance companies, who will be free to sell lots of worthless plans to customers who need to buy them to meet the legal requirements.

Max Baucus, who is the point man on health care in the Senate, is a longtime fan of some plan along these lines and he has Republican support. Several other key health care wonks have other plans along these lines, also with Republican support. With lots of similar plans, each one with some measure of Republican support, and no serious supporters of either single-payer or free-market plans, it’s not hard to see all parties compromising on one plan that best pools the Republican support for all of them.

Whether that is something we should be optimistic about is another question entirely. No reform at all might genuinely be better than flooding the market with worthless insurance and legally forcing people to buy it, and the merits of this approach (from a liberal point of view) are not sufficiently ‘better’ than Economic Darwinist conservative health plans, to my way of thinking.

Eclectic Radical said:

I am a policy wonk on a massive level, for good or ill.

You don’t say. :) I really ought to wade into tax reform a bit deeper, but there’s always something else grinding my gears.

Eclectic Radical also said:

Since Congress is never going to come close to anything like universal health care in our lifetimes, you have very little to worry about. :)

We shall see. Your pessimism fuels my faltering optimism on this issue.

I am a policy wonk on a massive level, for good or ill. Since Congress is never going to come close to anything like universal health care in our lifetimes, you have very little to worry about. :)

I’m not much of a tax reform wonk, but I am fond of getting rid of any loopholes that only benefit people with the money to keep accountants on retainer. I won’t be so happy when Congress approves funding to send the unemployed accountants to nursing school so we have adequately staffed medical centers when universal health care kicks in, but something like that is bound to happen anyway. ;)

The complexities of the tax code exist for two reasons, the original being the reason for their institution and the second being the reason for their longevity: the politically motivated slough of deductions, exceptions, and exemptions which blatantly favor those who can afford professional tax accountants and the lobbying strength of professional tax accountants made wealthy by the complicated tax code. :)

Real tax code simplification requires actual substantive changes to the tax code. The elimination of deductions, exceptions and exemptions would not play well with the tax cut crowd: even with Reagan’s elimination of quite a few deductions, the 35% tax bracket pays (on average) a 27% rate after deductions. People don’t want to just start paying that 8% difference. It’s these deductions that make it complicated enough that even professional tax accountants can make serious tax return errors on behalf of public figures. ;)

No one in Washington wants to eliminate deductions; in fact, both major political parties want to add more. There is strong chance at least some of President Obama’s tax credits may be implemented and, if they are, that will make things that tiny bit more complicated. Pretending the code will be in anyway simplified is silly.

As you know, Jenn, I strongly advocate raising the minimum for the EIA, cutting the rates for the remaining tax brackets significantly, ending the distinction between corporate and personal income taxes, ending the distinction between capital gains taxes and income taxes, and closing all tax loopholes. /That/ would simplify the tax code dramatically. It would also send most of your fellow fiscal conservatives AND my fellow liberals screaming for the hills while tax accountants started a suicide bombing campaign against the government. ;)