With the meteoric rise of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the pre-Iowa caucus/New Hampshire primary polls of the 2008 GOP presidential nomination fight, it was inevitable that we'd start hearing his ideas on health care. Huckabee, who admirably lost 110 pounds after a diagnosis of diabetes, wrote a book called Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork, and supports a national smoking ban, provided surprisingly little indication of what he'd do regarding health care until recently - despite his well known public advocacy for healthy living. Even now, Huckabee gives more of a general outline of a health care policy than a detailed plan. Of Huckabee's health care ideas, Bob Laszewski says:
On the surface [Huckabee] seems to want a lot of it both ways--no more government but lots of new program ideas. For example, he calls for tax credits to help low-income people purchase health insurance but says universal healh care can't be "funded through ever higher taxes." Giving low income people meaningful assistance to buy health insurance is what makes the Democrats' plans so costly.
Much of what he talks about in these principles is similar to the other leading Republican candidates. Like other Republicans, he would begin to shift the health insurance system away from the employer and toward a consumer-driven model putting a more vibrant health care market at the center of his strategy.Like other Republicans, he does not call for individual or employer mandates and the more than $100 billion of annual spending that Democrats call for, in great part, to implement them.
Like all candidates, Republican and Democratic, he calls for more focus on prevention and health information technology to improve the cost and quality of the system.
The health care system in this country is irrevocably broken, in part because it is only a "health care" system, not a "health" system. We don't need universal health care mandated by federal edict. We do need to get serious about preventive health care. I advocate policies that will encourage the private sector to seek innovative ways to bring down costs. I value the states' role as laboratories for new market-based approaches. When I'm President, Americans will have more control of their health care options, not less. As President, I will work with the private sector, Congress, health care providers, and other concerned parties to lead a complete overhaul of our health care system. Our health care system is making our businesses non-competitive in the global economy. It is time to recognize that jobs don't need health care, people do, and move from employer-based to consumer-based health care.
On its face, this doesn't sound bad from a business standpoint although it would be nice to have considerably more detail. Unfortunately, some of Huckabee's nanny-state tendencies, like his smoking ban advocacy are, to say the least, unsettling.
How will it all play in Des Moines, Davenport and Dubuque? Soon we'll know.
