GOP's Gay Candidate

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News

Peter Hankwitz, Former GOP congressional candidate, member Republican Leadership Council, Log Cabin Republican talks about being an openly gay Republican candidate.

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Can conservatives still govern?

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service

In light of disastrous setbacks for Republicans in the last two election cycles resulting in the fruition of long-deferred liberal dreams, some are debating that this may be the end of conservatism as we know it.

Democrats currently control both houses of Congress, both led by a Democratic President who has pledged wide-sweeping reforms in the face of widespread economic crises. Many blame Republicans and the administration of President George W. Bush for the current state of the U.S. economy and the resoundingly unpopular war in Iraq.

“Republicans lost in 2008 and 2006, not because they ran on conservative ideas but because they ran away from conservative ideas,” says Lee Edwards, Ph.D., Distinguished Fellow of the right-leaning Heritage Institute.

“Can conservatives govern? That’s a reasonable question, given the glaring miss-steps and failures of the Bush administration,” Edwards said. “In 2001 the Bush administration, working with a Republican Congress, enacted a monumental tax cut of $1.6 trillion, the largest in U.S. history, which kept the economy humming until the financial collapse of 2008.”

According to Edwards, the core principles of conservatism should be: ordered liberty, individual freedom and responsibility, limited government and a strong national defense.

But David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Liberal-leaning Cato Institute, disagrees. He says that conservative values have become rigid in a society that has naturally become more liberal.

“The conservative ascendancy was also helped by the decline and fall of American liberalism – its swift descent marked by a tell-tale shift from concern for the common man and middle America to a preoccupation with minorities and special interests,’” he said.

And now, the center is farther to the left than it used to be, the left has moved toward the center and “many Americans have looked at the future of the welfare state and they like what they think they see – the entitlements,” Boaz said.

Quoting famed Libertarian and former National Review Editor Frank S. Meyer, Edwards said, “The freedom of the person is the central and primary end of political society. The state has only three limited functions: national defense, the preservation of domestic order, and the administration of justice between citizens.”

Edwards, has written more than 20 books on the history of conservatism, and said that history is repeating itself.

“American conservatism seemed on the edge of extinction after the crushing defeat of Goldwater in 1964,” he said. But, “Reagan wrote that the landslide majority (that defeated Goldwater) did not vote against conservatism, but against the false image of conservatism that our liberal opponents successfully mounted.”

“Starting in 1989, traditional conservatives, neoconservatives and libertarians have been fussing and feuding – partly because they miss the unifying threat of communism,” Edwards said, adding that in order to survive, Republicans must embrace ideological diversity within the party.

“What we need is a politics of inclusion, not a politics of exclusion,” Edwards said. Republicans need “a renewed fusionism that will unite all the branches of a now-divided conservative mainstream.”

Social conservatives have become among the most important constituencies, as they provide the necessary ground troops in the political wars, he said.

And what makes a conservative renaissance possible? “The philosophers would not have been able to write their books, and the popularizers would not have been able to publish their magazines, and the politicians would not have been able to run their campaigns without the support of conservative philanthropists. Men of means and vision,” Edwards said.

It will be hard to work with the new Democratic majority because “conservatives are uncomfortable with compromise, and they scorn accommodation,” Edwards said.”

Outlining the road back to power, Edwards said that conservatives are well funded, but need to master the new media and choose a charismatic figure to be this generation’s Ronald Reagan.

Low-hanging fruit.

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News

The Alliance for Health Reform presented findings of recent pilot studies showing that major improvements in healthcare are possible now, even in advance of new technologies and structures.

Ed Howard, Alliance for Health Reform, said that less than two percent of hospitals have “fully integrated” Health Information Technology (HIT). Even as hospitals invest in hardware, software, and training, the systems won’t work unless everyone uses them, he said. Where HIT is used effectively, he finished, quality and cost control are measurably improved. In other words, HIT does deliver better, faster, less expensive care.

But only when its use is coordinated among providers (often called “Care Teams”), according to Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). When the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) merely recreates the chart as an electronic document, “it can actually allow us to make the same mistakes faster.”

She cited the Provnost Study showing that when computers helped to coordinate care among all of the caregivers, using checklists, prompts, and feedback, infected lines in the ICU were reduced nearly to zero.

Jon Rasmussen, Pharm. D., Chief of Clinical Pharmacy Cardiovascular Services, and Susan Kuca, RN, Cardiac Care Coordinator, described Kaiser Permanente’s intricately coordinated care. They said the program had reduced the risk of subsequent fatal heart attack by 88 percent if begun immediately after hospitalization, and by 73 percent even if started much later, such as when a patient with existing heart disease came into the system from elsewhere.

Greg Halvorson, Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente Health Plan, said we are the only industrialized country without universal health care. He said healthcare can and should be both better and more affordable. Halvorson described a RAND study covering 5 million patients over 2 years that found 25 percent of care was wrong or harmful, implying that U.S. savings in healthcare from efficiency alone could be one-half to one trillion dollars.

Diabetics account for 30 percent of Medicaid dollars, yet their carewas rated as “right only eight percent of the time.”

Big deductibles had the opposite of their intended effect by causing beneficiaries to delay care too long, he said.

In the case of chronic care, one percent of patients use 35 percent ofthe dollars, and ten percent use 80 percent of total dollars. “Chronic
care is a team sport,” Halvorson said.

The consensus of the panel was that, even without a single new treatment or device, coordination of ongoing care could save billions
or trillions of dollars, while improving outcomes.

New policy for old drugs

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) announced the Promoting Innovation and Access to Life-Saving Medicine Act, to make generic alternatives available as “biologics” go out of parent.

Schumer joked that he couldn't make an acronym out of the initials, then explained biologics are drugs produced from living cells, (such as Premarin from horses, vaccines from killed or weakened microbes, Insulin from bacteria, or the anticipated results of stem cell research).

Collins said the act is needed because currently the FDA has no pathway to evaluate and approve this class of drugs. Many lifesaving biologics are long out of patent, but are still expensive because generics can’t get approved. “The price tag (for insulin) might well drop by as much as 25 percent,” she said.

Brown and Martinez agreed that there was strong bipartisan support for the act.

“We probably have four different opinions here about here on the best way to proceed on healthcare reform, but everyone agrees a prerequisite is to bring costs down," Schumer said.

The summary of the bill contained a clause limiting “exclusivity” (like a patent) to five years for the original molecule and three years for some modifications.

“The most fiscally irresponsible budget in American history"?

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va,), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) presented the broad outline of the Republican budget counter-proposal, stating that details would be forthcoming next week.
Boehner said the President’s proposal “spends, taxes, and borrows too much,” adding “I think it’s completely irresponsible. Our plan curbs spending, creates jobs, and cuts taxes, while controlling the debt.”

Pence called it “the most fiscally irresponsible budget in American history,” saying it calls for “more spending, more government, more bailouts.”

He said the “national energy tax” (Cap-and-Trade) would cost every American household more than $3,000 per year. The increase on marginal tax rates would fall most heavily on small business owners, he said. “We believe it is our obligation to offer a better solution if we are in disagreement,” he finished.

Cantor said the Republicans had presented an alternative stimulus plan and housing plan and were preparing an alternative energy plan as well. He accused the President of turning from a centrist campaign to “ambushing” and “strong-arming” Congress toward a “more ideological” agenda.

Ryan promised the details of the plan next Wednesday on the House floor, calling the president’s version “reckless and irresponsible. It’s a budget that doubles the national debt in 5 and 1/2 years, and triples it in ten and 1/2 years. It’s a budget that increases our national debt and our borrowing more than in all prior presidencies.”


The pamphlet accompanying the announcement was 18 pages long and contained no specifics, but outlined broad policies, such as promoting nuclear power, encouraging enrollment in private insurance plans, reducing spending, reducing taxes, liberalizing exploration for oil in areas currently protected for environmental reasons, and ending “bailouts.”