Tea at Trianon: Republicans Can Win on Health Care Affordability

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 26, 2026

Republicans Can Win on Health Care Affordability

From AMAC:

For most of the last 40 years, pollsters have asked voters: Which party do you trust more on health care? The answer has been pretty much the same over this whole period. Voters trust Democrats more, sometimes by a two-to-one margin.

When I’ve asked my Republican politicos why that is, the answer I typically receive is: Our party doesn’t do health care. Then they crouch in the fetal position.

Well, the GOP certainly better start “doing health care,” because the issue of medical care access and affordability is front and center for American families.

The Republican promise to voters should be better health care at half the cost.

Here are five easy pieces to this saner and higher-quality health care system.

First, follow President Donald Trump’s lead from his State of the Union: “I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and give that money to the people.” That’s you and me.

This “patient power” approach is a direct assault on Washington’s long-held allegiance to hospital oligopolies, insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers. The medical care dollars should follow the patients, and that means a range of options in how that money is spent to improve health.

One of those options should be the expansion of health savings accounts, which will incentivize patients to shop around for the best price they can find for health services. Another option should be low-premium catastrophic coverage plans that cover major, but not routine, costs. This is supported by 78% of voters. (Read more.)