What do conservatives believe about health care?
Conservative strategist Patrick Ruffini has a searching and skeptical post on his party’s approach to health-care reform. “On health care, I have no idea what our basic guiding principle is,” he writes. “Seriously, I don’t.” He compares that to No Child Left Behind, a Republican bill on a traditionally Democratic topic that had its problems, but at least “insist[ed] on the vaguely conservative principle of accountability.” You could make a much better case for the conservatism of the Affordable Care Act than the conservatism of No Child Left Behind. The ACA insists on competitive, private insurance markets as the building block of a better health-care system. It begins to end the tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, a longtime conservative bete noire. It includes an individual mandate, which was once a conservative idea that promoted individual responsibility. But though Democrats have largely adopted these conservative ideas, conservatives have not declared victory and gotten t
