Kmarion wrote:
No kidding.
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly made a rather notable policy pronouncement on 9/16/2009's show: he supports the creation of a government-managed health care plan if it provides working Americans with an affordable option to other private insurance plans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U-cysjNT-Q
Well... I think the catch here is that he doesn't believe the government can. A lot of conservatives operate under the unflinching assumption that government could never be more efficient than the private market, so O'Reilly is essentially saying, "If you can prove this assumption wrong, I'll support a public option."
I'm sure if he was the one making policy decisions, he'd still vote down a public option unless someone convinced him that his assumptions were wrong.
The only significant revelation here is that he would appear to not be an ideological conservative; he's a conservative because he distrusts government. There's a subtle difference between the 2.
Ideological conservatives would be against a public option on principle, even if it was proven that public healthcare works better, because they believe that the government should not be involved in healthcare.
Conservatives like O'Reilly simply are skeptical of government being able to do something better than the market but are willing to budge on the issue if contradicting evidence arises.
In short, O'Reilly is a bit more of a pragmatist than I would've assumed, so I have to admit that I have a little more respect for him than before.
Last edited by Turquoise (2009-09-19 10:24:32)
