Vouchers, the Republican's Public Option

As people in the last year tried to label the public option as a socialist plot, it struck me that the system the plan was most comparable too was not British health care, Canadian health care or Nazi health care, but Jeb Bush's plan for educational vouchers. Now that Rick Scott is planning to double-down on the education policy, I think it might be worth asking why the GOP is fine with using tax dollars for private education, but considers doing the same to fund health care for sick people is some type of Bolshevik plot.

First, a short primer on Bush vouchers. The A-plus plan never went all-in on vouchers, but said that children at consistently underperforming schools should be eligible to take government vouchers and attend private schools. As the link above notes, this ran into some church-state issues, though frankly, I think there were much bigger problems with the plan.

Now, the public option. As imagined by Obama and company, the government would require everyone to get insurance, the same way all children are mandated to go to school. If there was no insurance available through work or other reasonable means, then a citizen could enroll in a public insurance program. There was never anything imagined in the legislation about health providers working for the government, as they do in the UK, so the money for health care would be directed to private doctors and other providers.

(I realize these are very simplified explanations of both A-plus vouchers and the public option. Please don't throw minutia at me. I am talking about the basic political philosophies here.)

Now, does anyone see the similarities? For those who are underserved by the current status quo, the government will step in and empower a citizen with the funding to go seek a private alternative to solve their problems. The biggest difference I see is that Bush's education plan actually sought to take money away from schools to pay for vouchers, and nobody important in Washington has to backbone to push a system which takes anything away from private insurance companies.

I can tell you reasons why I think the public option is a reasonable policy in lieu of universal healthcare (guaranteeing all citizens have coverage without letting the insurance giants screw us over) and reasons why I don't think much of vouchers (the inequity of using tax dollars to send some children to private school where other children pay and the problems with not holding private schools to the same standards even though they begin receiving public funds).

But at a time when the right is calling insurance mandates "unconstitutional" and the public option "socialism," I wonder why requiring all children to go to school is not viewed as some kind of tyranny, and why setting up a program that diverts tax money into the hands of private sector education providers isn't viewed as some sort of bailout.

According to Mother Jones, Rick Scott is upping the ante and suggesting vouchers be available to a broader range of people. Call is universal education care.

The publication says he plans to give $5,500 vouchers for people to use for public, private, charter or virtual outlets, and even if parents can afford to send their kids to private school anyway, they can just use that money to buy a new printer at their house. I guess this is how Republicans deal with inequity issues.

There are so many reasons I see why this is bad policy from a liberal progressive perspective. But given the absolute derangement about the public option, I don't understand how the modern conservative can stand for this type of "reform" in education without being lambasted as some hind of Soviet operative breaking into their ranks. I mean, why not just have the government pay people for going to school? Why not force teachers at private institutions to get their checks signed by the state?

But I guess this is the socialist public option that Republicans can get behind.