A few days ago I wrote a post titled The Conservative Plan: Don’t Get Sick. I don’t know if Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, reads Mahablog, but if he does I don’t mind at all that he borrowed my title. It’s the truth.

Grayson, of course, is the congressman who made a splash yesterday when he said in the House,

“It’s a very simple plan,” Grayson said in a floor speech about health care on Tuesday night. “Don’t get sick. That’s what the Republicans have in mind. And if you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly.”

In the video above Wolf Blitzer seemed shocked, shocked that anyone would say anything bad about Republicans.

People keep saying Republicans have no health care plan. They actually do, but it’s a dysfunctional one that would make the situation worse instead of better. I’ve waded through the health care sections of the rightie think tanks and looked at the “legislation” Republicans are actually proposing, so I probably know about as much about the Republican health care plan as most Republicans.

The various health care plans being put forward by Republicans address two vital issues:

1. They provide impressive talking points to repeat on cable news programs.
2. They can be printed into respectable stacks of paper to hold up to cameras, accompanied by the declaration See? We do so have a plan.

As explained in the two posts linked in the previous paragraph, the crown jewels of the Republicans “plan” are these:

1. People should pay more for their health care so they take better care of themselves and not need health care (in other words, don’t get sick).
2. Allow the insurance industry to separate us into low-risk and high-risk pools. They can make bigger profits selling junk policies to the healthy, and if the unhealthy can’t afford their jacked-up premiums, that’s too bad (in other words, die quickly).
3. Tax credits.

Seriously. The “purchasing insurance across state lines” scam falls under “separating us into low-risk and high-risk pools,” as explained elsewhere.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in allowing health care to be paid for by “free markets” is that there is no incentive for “free markets” to cure anyone. The health care industry doesn’t make money by curing you, but by what it can sell to you at a profit. Whether you live or die, you (or your heirs) still have to pay the bills.

And speaking of health care — I have the flu. Light posting for a while.