Memo to Congressional Pubs: Don't. Fall. For. It.

There's a giddiness being expressed in high-profile corners of the leftist media about Republicans deciding the time has come for a "bipartisan approach" to shoring up the nation's health-care system. The temptations to Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome seem to be beginning with a fresh look at how to subsidize insurance companies in order to offer insurance to low-income citizens. The previous way it was done was struck down in federal court in 2014, because Congress had not overtly put forth the money for them. Lamar Alexander intends to hold hearings with Patty Murray in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about it.

It's a step in a dangerously wrong direction, as Stephen Moore points out:

Every single Democrat in Congress — even the faux “moderates” in the Senate, like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Mark Warner of Virginia — is opposed to virtually every repeal and reform measure Republicans ‎have proposed.

They are against Medicaid reforms, including any turnback to the states. They are against repealing the ObamaCare tax increases. They are against repealing the individual mandate, the employer mandate and the essential benefit package regulations.

They are against interstate competition for insurance. They are against allowing consumers to have a choice option in selecting an insurance package. They are against expanding affordable health savings accounts for more Americans.

So what exactly are the Democrats for? They want to enact “fixes” to ObamaCare that would enshrine this colossal healthcare failure into permanent law. They want more money for the bankrupt exchanges. They want even higher penalties for Americans who don’t want to buy ObamaCare policies.

They want bailout money for the insurers, with whom they are joined at the hip. And they want measures that clear the path to a single payer system, which Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and most honest liberals concede is what they hope to be the only long-term solution to the ObamaCare crisis.

If ever there was a real-world application for the hackneyed truism that one can't be a little bit pregnant, it's the realm of health care and how to pay for it. Any government money is a pollution of the free market. From the get-go, you're distorting the market value of a particular service. No one can expect anything but chaos to ensue therefrom.

This is why an accurate framing of the issue from the start was necessary - and missing.

And this is not some defense of the way the insurance company has been operating in this arena over the years. In a truly free market, they would not be able to depend on redistribution to allow them to offer products that can't hold their own in the marketplace. As LITD has said before - over and over - they'd basically offer catastrophic-care policies at prices people found appealing, and every other kind of health-related service would be transacted for the way any other economic good is bought and sold.

Don't let the wonks and bleeding hearts get to you, Pubs.

There is still a chance to repair the damage wrought by the "A"CA - but it won't happen by "reaching across the aisle."