While I appreciate the GOP's opposition to Obama Care, I do wish there was more specific talk about what health care reform should look like. Looking for alternatives, I found this review of McCain's health care plan. Basically, McCain's plan was to put health care choices in the hands of the consumer through tax rebates, elimination of employer-provided insurance and interstate insurance markets.

What's ironic about the McCain plan is that the very plans the reviewer predicts that many Americans would flock to (high deductibles combined with health savings accounts) are the plans that wouldn't be available under Obama Care. Of course, what's also ironic about the McCain plan is that it assumes employers would give their employees the equivalent of their insurance as a salary increase. Fat chance with this kind of unemployment, but still, at least this kind of plan lets people pay for what they want and doesn't put all the decisions about what's covered, etc. in the government's hands and subject to various political winds and follies.

Critics also bemoaned the fate of the old and those in poor health under McCain's plan, but wouldn't certain insurers start to specialize in offering care to these folks the way car insurers provide coverage to bad drivers? Sure, it'd be more expensive for them, but it is more expensive. Maybe health savings accounts could be treated more like health IRAs that people could save for a lifetime of health care or you could specifically buy some kind of catastrophic care insurance or infertility coverage or whatever.

Or perhaps you have a choice of accepting the cash tax rebate for health care and shopping for the insurance you want, or not getting the rebate, accepting a higher tax rate and entering the public option.

The point is we really don't know what won't work, but I'm pretty sure that an incredibly bloated government program isn't our only option.