So the bubbly and irrepressible Ross Douthat has some biPartisan idea to contribute to the general quest for peace and progress. These apply to the health Care debate where he feels that the Democrats should compromise and pass a set of policies that the Republican superminority wants. If the Democrats give on this one he assures us that there will be at least some Republicans who will be willing to take.

The policies involve the usual suspects. Federal limits on medical malpractice awards because the states cannot be trusted to regulate their own courts. At the same time Federal deregulation of the sale of health insurance across state lines because some forward looking red states are the laboratories of democracy and will lead the way to a brave new world of health insurance.

Then he gets interesting, bringing up a proposal by Senator Judd Gregg. Remember the guy Obama made a fool of himself over last Fall:

What kind of legislation might this (admittedly Utopian) summit scenario produce? One possibility is a less expensive, less intrusive version of the current Senate bill. This is what Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican, was pushing last week. Like the Democratic bills, his proposal would mandate that everyone buy health insurance — but it would emphasize catastrophic coverage, rather than comprehensive plans. This would reduce both the weight of regulation and the bill’s overall price tag, freeing up money for immediate deficit reduction.

So we all get a mandate to buy health insurance which is a good regulation because it forces individuals to contribute to the support of fine American Health Insurers. At the same time there are no regulations that determine what sort of product Health Insurers offer or even force health insurers to issue similar policies to everyone at the same rates which is bad, intrusive regulation because it forces fine corporation to alter well thought out business practices that we should know by now are for our own good.

Wonks Anonymous is still wondering where the money that will be freed up for deficit reduction will come from. Presumably Gregg's version of the bill would retain the glorious excise tax on employer provided "luxury" plans in full. Since subsidies would be lower we could spend the additional revenue to cover other needs like fighting wars to save Islam from itself and bailing out bankers while decreasing the deficit.

Please don't call it a tax increase. We are just putting the lucky duckies who have employer provided health insurance on the same footing as the honest folks whose employers don't choose to insure them.

Still can't buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions. We can use "better funded risk pools" to pour more money to the health Insurance industry. We are sure that they will help you out then.