Another possibility, more congenial to conservatives, would be a coverage expansion that follows an explicitly free-market blueprint, but that’s funded at a rate that makes Democrats feel comfortable. Writing in The Weekly Standard, for instance, Jeffrey H. Anderson has proposed covering an extra 10 million Americans with a mixture of tax credits for the uninsured and better-funded risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions. One could imagine Republicans taking Anderson’s “small bill” into negotiations with the Democrats and emerging with a compromise that spent somewhat more money but kept the basic mix of tax credits and risk pooling intact.
